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The corporate regulator is suing Westpac after it allegedly failed to appropriately respond to hundreds of financial hardship requests from bank customers.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) said in a statement on Tuesday it had started civil proceedings in the Federal Court seeking financial penalties to be imposed on the major bank.
All of these customers told Westpac they were experiencing financial hardship,” Asic said.
Many of these customers also told Westpac about their difficult circumstances and vulnerabilities, including their inability to work, the impacts of serious medical conditions or their carer responsibilities.”
This error meant we didn’t provide some of our customers with the help they needed. For this, we are deeply sorry,” Scott Collary, Westpac’s chief information officer, said.
The broader picture here is the we’re seeing big corporations at the moment making record profits off the back of everyday people, these big corporations line up to public handouts when the going gets tough and then when they get back into a more healthy situation, they just pocket the profits and they pass the costs on to everyday people and we think it’s time to say enough is enough and it’s time for these big corporations and made to act in the public interest and that’s government’s job.
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