Australian bank, Westpac Banking Corp. is axing about 300 jobs, which will render 0.8 per cent of its 37,000 + strong workforce — primarily in the consumer and business banking segments — jobless. This layoff comes at a time when the Bank is experiencing growth in profits due to rising interest rates and growing inflation.
The employees of the Bank have already been dealing with immense work pressure. These cuts will only increase the burden of the remaining staff.
In May 2023, many lenders in the country, including ANZ Group and National Australia had indicated that the pressure was building on their net interest margins.
Westpac had posted a 22 per cent increment in its net profit in the first half. Its net profit had gone up to about $2.70 billion amidst inflation.
Earlier this year, Westpac had engaged Tata Consultancy Services to help divest its wealth-management arm. In fact, TCS helped the Bank successfully undergo several transformation and simplification programmes. The divestiture helped Westpac concentrate more on its core banking operations. The BT Financial Group (BTFG) businesses were separated, including life insurance, general insurance, superannuation and advisory services.
In 2012, Westpac had opened its maiden branch in Mumbai, India, to lend support to Australian customers as well as the ever growing number of Indian customers investing in and trading with Australia.
Till then, Westpac had been operating in India through its representative office, ever since 2007. It was granted a foreign banking licence by the Reserve Bank of India in April 2012.
