Lender self-reported issues involving mortgages, credit cards and personal loans, and has acknowledged court’s decision
Westpac has been ordered to pay $26 million in civil penalties after a Federal Court found the major lender failed to respond to more than 200 online financial hardship requests within the time required by law.
The failures stretched across nearly six years, from 2017 to 2023.
Justice Timothy McEvoy said the contraventions "were not suggested to be deliberate and arose instead from inadequate systems and operational failures”, but that they were nonetheless "very serious”.
Affected customers held a range of credit products – including home loans, credit cards, personal loans and car loans – across Westpac and its subsidiaries St George Bank, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne. Many were experiencing financial hardship as a result of domestic abuse, natural disasters, serious illness or job loss.
Some customers had adverse credit information recorded on their files and had their debts sold to third-party purchasers, who then pursued those debts. "These circumstances add an additional layer of harm, and significance, to Westpac's conduct," McEvoy said.
Sarah Court, deputy chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), said the penalty sent a clear message to all lenders.
"Westpac failed the very customers who needed help when they needed it most," Court said. "These were customers who were asking for some breathing room for a range of reasons including domestic abuse, natural disasters, serious illness or the loss of their job.
“Instead of providing a safety net for these customers, Westpac's systemic failures let them slip through the cracks.”
A Westpac spokesperson told MPA: "Westpac acknowledges the Court's decision. We again apologise to any customers who were affected. We are deeply sorry we let them down. We self-reported these issues in 2022 and 2023 and to put things right, we've completed a remediation program including refunds of fees and charges, debt waivers and payments for non-financial loss.
“We have strengthened our processes and upgraded our online hardship systems to meet the standards our customers deserve. Over the period in question Westpac received approximately 695,000 requests for hardship assistance. We take our obligations seriously and have taken action to ensure we help our customers when they need it most."
The case follows similar ASIC action against ANZ, which was ordered to pay $40 million for comparable hardship failures, as part of a much larger $250 million misconduct fine, in December 2025.
NAB was also fined $15.5 million over hardship response failures in August 2025.
