After a four month try-before-you-buy period Westpac has anointed Dave Curran as its new chief information officer.Curran joined the bank in February in a consulting role, giving him the opportunity to kick the tyres on Westpac's information systems and ambitions. Formerly Curran was the executive general manager of the now completed core modernisation project at the Commonwealth Bank.Where CBA bit the bullet early and has spent well over A$1 billion on a new core banking platform, which is allowing it to innovate rapidly, Westpac focused its innovation energies largely at the edges, serving up new apps and mobile service as part of its $2 billion SIPs (Strategic Investment Priorities) initiative which toned up the bank's technology.But there was never any getting away from the fact that the bank's legacy core systems needed modernising. The need for that was starkly demonstrated in April when Westpac and CBA announced cardless cash initiatives on the same day. CBA relied solely on apps and text messages to complete the cardless transaction at an ATM, while Westpac still required customers to telephone the call centre to be issued with a code.Westpac has long pledged to replace its old Hogan core banking system with the updated Celeriti system from CSC, and to mesh that platform with the St George core which will also be transitioned to the latest release of Celeriti. Westpac's core systems upgrade is slated for completion by 2017.Curran, who assumes the CIO mantle on September 8, will now have his second crack at a core systems overhaul. He reports to chief operating officer, John Arthur. Westpac has also reinstated the CIO onto the bank's Executive Team, reflecting the importance of the role.