Company overview
About us
Westpac began trading on 8 April, 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales with a single office in Macquarie Place, Sydney. In 1982, with the merger of the Commercial Bank of Australia, it changed its name to Westpac Banking Corporation. On 23 August 2002, Westpac was registered as a public company under the Australian Corporations Act (2001).
Today:
- The Westpac Group has branches and affiliates throughout Australia, New Zealand and the near Pacific region and maintains offices in key financial centres around the world including London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore
- As at 30 September 2009 The Westpac Group employed approximately 37,000 people in Australia, New Zealand and around the world, and had global assets of $590 billion
- Westpac is ranked in the top 5 listed companies by market capitalisation on the Australian Securities Exchange Limited (ASX). As at 30 September 2009, our market capitalisation was $77.2 billion.
- For the 12 months to 30 September 2009,The Westpac Group's reported net profit after income tax was $3,446 million
- About 540,000 people and institutions in Australia and overseas are Westpac shareholders.
The Westpac Group has 5 key customer facing divisions through which we serve around 10 million customers.
- Westpac Retail and Business Banking
- St.George Bank
- BT Financial Group Australia
- Westpac Institutional Bank
- New Zealand Banking.
Other business divisions in the Group comprise:
- Pacific Banking, which provides a full range of financial products, including home, personal and business lending and savings and investment accounts for more than 245,000 retail and business customers throughout the Pacific;
- Product and Operations, which is responsible for consumer and business product development and operations;
- Technology, which is responsible for developing and maintaining reliable and flexible technology capabilities and technology strategies;
- Group Treasury, which is primarily focused on the management of the Group’s interest rate risk and funding requirements; and
- Core Support, which comprises those functions performed centrally, including finance, risk, legal and human resources.
