Media releases

Approximately 190 roles from Mortgage Operations, Westpac Institutional Banking and Customer Solutions will be offshored. It will mostly impact workers at Lockleys in South Australia, and Kent Street in NSW.

Finance Sector Union National Secretary Julia Angrisano condemned the move.

“Westpac made $7 billion in profit in the last financial year, a result the CEO said would ‘set Westpac up for growth and success’. Is this what ‘growth and success’ looks like for Westpac workers?

“These are skilled bank workers managing complex commercial relationships and sensitive information.

“Our members who work at Westpac have told us about their concerns not just for their own jobs, but for customers and the security of their data.”

De-identified quotes from Westpac workers:

“Given the sensitivity and risk associated with the kinds of accounts we manage, it’s clear that Westpac hasn’t considered the risk this poses to customers, shareholders and staff. This will have a detrimental impact on Westpac’s reputation and credibility in the market, it is risky to send this information to Manila!”

“I’ve been through redundancy on numerous occasions in the past, but this is the worst experience I’ve ever had with Westpac, they’ve left me feeling afraid, confused, undervalued. I’ve never felt this insecure about my job until this announcement.”

“I never thought this role would have been outsourced to an offshore ‘partner’ given the complexity and compliance risks associated with the complex accounts we work with.”

“(Our work) requires an experienced team member to review the account and use their skills, knowledge, and experience to make informed decisions that take the customers’ situation and banks’ interests in mind. You can’t put this into a Standard Operating Procedure! This is only going to tarnish Westpac’s reputation, result in complaints and put our compliance and regulatory obligations at risk.”

The union understands Westpac won’t be offering voluntary redundancies and has said it will consider the preferences of those who remain in any remaining onshore roles. They will also transition all outsourced management and ethical review activity to Concentrix (an existing partner).

“We’ve seen what can happen when important work goes offshore, something as important as ethics being offshored can create dangerous implications and have flow on effects.”

The union has written to NSW and SA Premiers to seek their intervention.

Media contact: Rebecca Nicholson – 0409 216053