Westpac discloses more misconduct expenses
Westpac will take a A$1.1 billion hit to its bottom line when it announces its 2018/19 results next month, largely as a result of misconduct.The bank announced yesterday that costs related to customer remediation would reduce earnings by $341 million in the September half and costs related to its "wealth reset" would reduce earnings by 36 million.The $377 of "notable items" in the second half comes on top of $753 million of costs in the March half.The majority of new provisions are related to ongoing advice service fees. There are also business banking provisions associated with interest-only loans that did not switch to principal and interest when required.The bank foreshadowed a contingent liability in its financial report, related to a failure to report a large number of international funds transfer instructions as required under anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules.The transfers in question occurred between 2009 and 2018 and were received from correspondent banks for payments predominantly to beneficiaries living in Australia."The majority of the payments were low value, recurring and made by foreign government pension funds and corporates," Westpac said.The bank said it had not yet received any indication from Austrac about the enforcement action it would take.