Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Westpac puts 28 IT jobs under review

BT Financial Group and Westpac Institutional Bank jobs under review

Westpac Banking Corporation has put the future of 28 IT management roles in doubt by commencing a review of their roles as part of a group-wide restructure.

Westpac on Tuesday informed the employees in BT Financial Group and Westpac Institutional Bank that their jobs were under review.

However, a final decision on which jobs would be cut has not been made, Westpac spokeswoman Supreet Gosal told AAP.

No redundancies had been made and the bank will redeploy the employees where possible, she said.

The review has been driven by a group-wide corporate restructure announced by Westpac last November which will result in the creation of a new group services division embracing IT, property services, legal services and banking operations.

The restructure will also create an Australian Financial Services division which will combine retail and business banking, St George Bank, BT, banking products and risk management.

It will be led by former ANZ Banking Group retail banking boss Brian Hartzer who has quit his London-based role as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland's retail operations to return to Australia.

Westpac also is reviewing all business units including its New Zealand operations, and firm decisions on jobs and redundancies could take over a year to be made, she said.

Westpac previously flagged it would reduce its 37,712-strong workforce in 2012, but has no target numbers.

"We'll be reviewing all operations across the business," Ms Gosal said.

The bank is initially targeting reductions in head office, contracting and IT roles, and she confirmed more IT jobs would be cut.

"There will be a decrease over the course of the year but we've got no targets."

Westpac's review comes a day after ANZ Bank informed 131 employees in Victoria their jobs would go.

Several hundred more jobs will be shed from the Melbourne-based lender in the next six months, ANZ's chief of Australian operations Phil Chronican said last Friday.

Analysts at Bell Potter Securities and UBS suggested the major and regional banks could slash up to 7,000 jobs over the next two years to cut costs and improve profitability, with most jobs disappearing through natural attrition.

Natural attrition rates across the banks were around 10 to 15 per cent in 2011, but the Finance Sector Union (FSU) said turnover in bank call centres was closer to 30 per cent.

"While natural attrition is an aide, you can't get to the numbers (the analysts are) talking about through natural attrition because it doesn't occur in the areas where (the banks would) happily not backfill (roles)," FSU national secretary Leon Carter said.

Westpac's shares fell nine cents to $20.57.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: AAP, ANZ, BT, BT Financial Group, St George Bank, Westpac, Westpac, Westpac Institutional Bank

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: banks, careers, jobs, westpac
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Synergy gains sustainable competitive edge with HP printers, services and solutions
    Western Australian electricity retailer Synergy signed a four-year HP Smart Print Services agreement to establish an efficient and sustainable imaging and printing network which reduces waste and the organisation’s environmental footprint, without compromising on quality, reliability or security. Read more.
    Learn more »
  • Six tips for choosing a unified threat management (UTM) solution
    As network security grows more complex, businesses are demanding the simplicity of unified threat management (UTM). Businesses like yours are replacing multiple, outdated and costly appliances from different vendors with a single, reliable UTM solution. The best solutions offer a more powerful way to manage network security today and in the future. UTM also promises to slash your network security management efforts and hardware costs. This whitepaper offers you detailed advice on how to choose the comprehensive unified threat management (UTM) that best suits your business.
    Learn more »
  • IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Business Process Platforms 2011 Vendor Analysis
    Enterprises adopting business process management (BPM) software have wide-ranging needs, from highly dynamic task management to complex, high-volume processing with a focus on straight-through automation and the ability to rapidly detect exceptions. This IDC MarketScape focuses on what we call business process (BP) platforms, which are optimized to support midrange to more complex use cases. Read on.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.