A Magistrate court on Wednesday has spared a bank employee who helped a friend steal $115,500 from customers' accounts at Westpac, from serving jail time and instead sent her to a community-based service.

Riza Veronica Angeles, 47, a mother of two from Glenwood, had worked at Westpac for 22 years and had never been in trouble before she was befriended by Raymund King, a fellow Filipino she met in a shoe store.

A psychologist's report tendered to the court said he persuaded Angeles to access the confidential details of several bank customers through the Westpac mainframe in May and August 2009.

Unknown to Angeles, he then used the information to transfer tens of thousands of dollars into his own account, which were wired to the Philippines.

Magistrate Mark Buscombe found Angeles guilty of six charges of unauthorised access with intent to facilitate the commission of a serious offence, although he noted that she received no money or benefit from the scam.

In the Downing Centre Local Court yesterday, she was sentenced to a 12-month intensive correction order, a community-based punishment in which offenders must participate in rehabilitation programs, observe strict curfews, undergo regular drug and alcohol testing and complete a minimum of 32 hours a month of community service.

The orders, introduced in July last year, also allow a court to set conditions such as a ban on drinking, travel restrictions, random breath tests and electronic monitoring with ankle bracelets. The Keneally government has said people convicted of crimes that attract less than two years' jail could be eligible for the orders, which if breached, revert to a full-time jail term.

Periodic detention was introduced in 1971 to give magistrates an alternative to a period in NSW's tough jails, especially for first offenders.

However, the system was reported to have failed - more than one third of detainees did not complete their detention and many reoffended - and is being phased out.

Magistrate Buscombe made a compensation order of $115,500 in favour of Westpac.