EastWest Bank first vice-president and head of Information Technology (IT) Group Randall Rogelio Evangelista underscored the role of IT governance in achieving business goals set by companies’ Board of Directors (BoD). This was during the open forum portion of the 2014 Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) IT Governance Summit recently held in Makati City.

Attended by board members, C-suite and enterprise IT executives, this year's summit focused on topics such as IT value-generation, business-IT strategy alignment, IT risk management measurement, determination of IT project success, measurement of IT operations value, and effective communication of IT matters to corporate boards.

Evangelista, who sat as one of the panelists in the summit’s open forum alongside President & CEO at Pentathlon Systems Resources Inc. Ms. Helen Macasaet and Vice President & Chief Information Officer of MERALCO Mr. Marthyn Cuan, said that it is the role of the chief information officer (CIO) to effectively translate business directions or requirements from top management.

And this, he said, is where IT governance comes in. IT governance is a set of management processes that measures whether an organization is optimizing use of Information Technology. It ensures that IT decision-makers are capable, authorized and empowered to make such decisions.

Evangelista said, “IT’s goal is always to enable or deliver a business requirement. This is why IT projects are always presented or justified together with business.”

Evangelista added, “It is very important that the CIO is trusted by the CEO and the BoD. There are a lot of technical details relied by the BoD on the CIO. The CIO should be able to show his or her ability to execute and deliver the plans, that is, to ‘enable’ business.”

The banking industry has always been regarded as IT-focused. EastWest Bank, for one, largely depends on its IT department to proactively develop and efficiently utilize IT systems and infrastructure to support business growth.

On a sideline interview, Evangelista said that the bank is currently upgrading its core banking system to Temenos T24, a multi-awarded global system used by other foreign financial institutions. He said migration is scheduled within the year and will enable a more efficient service delivery across customer touchpoints to include branch services, ATMs and internet banking facility. Evangelista also said that EastWest is planning to launch its mobile app, a new online banking platform and a more interactive corporate website before the end of the year.