East coast rollout resumes for BankWest

They may be large, orange and seemingly always empty, but there is enough foot traffic, and sales, into the garish Bank of Western Australia branches to justify a revival of the branch rollout that was put on ice 18 months ago.

Andy Weir, chief information officer for BankWest, told an industry conference yesterday that the bank's east coast network was "very near scale … it makes sense to confirm and revisit" the bank's investment in those branches.

BankWest was, he said, "close to an investment decision now".

Weir was speaking at the FST Media Banking and Financial Services Technology and Innovation conference in Melbourne

The bank rapidly developed a branch network in eastern Australian in the mid 2000s, supported by aggressive advertising and market leading pricing on some products (such as deposits).

But Commonwealth Bank put the branch expansion in eastern Australia on ice following the purchase of BankWest from HBOS in late 2008.