Westpac creates OS for groupwide data management uplift

Westpac has built and embedded a data management operating system called DM-OS throughout its groupwide operations.

DM-OS was initially created to meet an enforceable undertaking the bank entered with the the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) back in 2020, but was more than a box-ticking exercise, head of data Dave Massage told a recent Gartner Data and Analytics Summit.

At the time of the enforceable undertaking, Massage said Westpac was operating outside its risk appetite with respect to data governance, which had caught the regulator's attention.

APRA sought action from Westpac to "uplift and standardise data management capabilities ... and improve the quality of [the] most critical data" within the banking group.

"The 'ask' from the regulator was pretty simple: they basically said to us, 'You need to deliver an operating system for the management of the group's critical data'," Massage said.

Out of this, DM-OS was born.

Massage - who describes "building trust in data" as something he's passionate about - said the purpose of DM-OS is to "provide the bank with an ecosystem of tools, processes and supporting functions ... to improve the management of our data and place the group back [within] our data risk appetite."

"DM-OS simplifies the way in which we conduct data risk management at Westpac by integrating our tools and our processes [into] a cohesive system," he said.

Massage said that DM-OS wasn't built or embedded overnight.

"It's been a bit of a journey, both in terms of maturity of our DM-OS ecosystem, and also the 'embedment' of the application of DM-OS across the bank," he said.

The results, however, had been profound.

"We've seen a cultural shift at Westpac in terms of how we see, how we understand and how we manage our most critical data across the group," Massage said.

"DM-OS has also ensured that both reliable and accurate data is being used to make the right decisions for our customers. 

"As a result of the increased maturity embedding of DM-OS, each division across Westpac now possesses the strong ownership and control over their data through a consistent application of a centralised governance model.

"The divisions, and their lines of business, now understand the importance of their data and any implications of poor data quality when it's identified, and the divisions now are owning and properly driving the remediation of data problems by adhering to the group's processes."

One of the technical components of DM-OS is metadata management software made by Alex Solutions.

"Alex is Westpac's enterprise metadata tool, and is viewed as the data catalog of catalogs across the bank," Massage said.

"It's really the centerpiece of our DM-OS technology landscape."

Massage said that Alex "isn't just the single source of truth for the group's critical data" but that it also managed data lineage information.

"It's allowing users of any technical capability to instantly access, understand and use the right data for them, and providing the functionality to determine where data is coming from, how it's been transformed, and essentially where it's going," Massage said.

"It's acting as Westpac's 'one stop shop' for data, providing connectivity, harvesting, enrichment, data governance, data quality, all in the one place, and it's acting as well as a key data feed for DQ [data quality] monitoring."

Westpac's divisions used Alex's capabilities "every single day to ensure ambiguities and misconceptions around data are being reduced."

"Any conflicting or duplicated data and definitions are basically being eliminated, immediately improving reliability within our systems, our critical processes and reports as well," Massage said.

"Most recently, we've built out a DQ repository, which is an amazing capability to ensure that we've got consistent application of DQ rules across the group."