tens of millions of dollars from tens of thousands of customer as a result of its misconduct. Accordingly, the bank has agreed to pay $113 million in penalties, in addition to another $80 million that will be paid to customers in remediation. This follows a whopping $1.3 billion paid by the Sydney-based financial service provider in September last year, in settlement of breach of money laundering and child exploitation regulations. The allegations were levelled by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre which monitors financial transactions to identify money laundering, terrorism financing, tax evasion and other financial crimes.
According to ASIC’s commissioner, Sarah Court, the regulator was “disappointed” over having to take some of the biggest lenders in the country to court. Commenting on the allegations made against Westpac, she said it was unprecedented for ASIC to hit the respondent with multiple proceedings at the same time.
“The conduct and breaches alleged in these proceedings caused widespread consumer harm and ranged across Westpac’s everyday banking, financial advice, superannuation and insurance businesses,” she said. “A common aspect across these matters has been poor systems, poor processes and poor governance, which is suggestive of an overall poor compliance culture within Westpac at the relevant time. Westpac must urgently improve its systems and culture to ensure these systemic failures do not continue.”
Meanwhile, the bank’s chief executive Peter King apologised to the customers of Westpac, as he conceded that the organisation had fallen short of the standards expected by them. “The issues raised in these matters should not have occurred, and our processes, systems and monitoring should have been better. We are putting things right and unreservedly apologise to our customers,” he said.
