Comment: Familiar struggles divide Westpac

Ian Rogers
Defining the boundary between the business bank and the retail bank is an age-old conundrum at many organisations - and one where strategic logic is often overshadowed by other factors.

The quest to maximise the profit pool - and thus the bonus pool - has played a large part in organisational structure over the last decade or so at Westpac and helped inform short term shifts in the division between each side of the bank.

Long time followers of Westpac will recall the bank's ebb and flow on this strategic choice.

In September 2001, then CEO David Morgan decided the time was ripe to unite the retail bank with the business bank.

In February 2007, Morgan then split the two.

His successor Gail Kelly opted to unite them.

They have now been torn apart once again.

The chopping and changing might also bring new thinking on the bank's array of consumer banking brands, including the heavy investment in the revival of Bank of Melbourne (a brand acquired in the Bob Joss era, abandoned by David Morgan and revived by Gail Kelly).