Bank of Queensland mulls vaccine mandate for staff

The regional lender is considering mandating Covid-19 vaccines for staff and sees ‘reasonable chance’ the state border will be open by Christmas.

Brisbane-based Bank of Queensland is mulling a vaccine mandate for staff. Picture: NCA NewsWire /Jono Searle

Bank of Queensland workers may soon be forced to get jabbed if they want to keep working in the office or local bank branch, with CEO George Frazis revealing the lender is mulling a vaccine mandate for staff.

It comes as the Queensland government drops hints of border openings in the coming weeks and as the state pushes past the 70 per cent mark for people receiving a first dose of a Covid vaccine.

“We’re really strong supporters of an open economy and vaccinations are an important part of that,” Mr Frazis said in an interview.

“We’re looking at it very closely in terms of our workforce and our priority is to make sure that we’re providing a safe environment for them, so we’ll be taking that into consideration.”

The Brisbane-based lender employs close to 4000 staff across its BOQ, Virgin Media and ME Bank brands, with the bulk of its branches in Queensland.

Mr Frazis said there was “a reasonable chance” Australians will be moving freely in and out of the sunshine state by Christmas, as he predicted Queensland vaccination rates would push up toward those seen in NSW and ACT.

The Queensland government had done “very well” in keeping the local economy flowing through the pandemic, he said.

“But at some point we do need to open up the economy in a safe way and vaccines are the answer to that.

“The rates in Queensland are increasing quite strongly now … and reasonably strong in terms of intentions for vaccination, so I’m quite confident we‘re going to get to good levels that would mean that the government will be able to make sensible decisions on when to open up.”

Mr Frazis was speaking after handing down BOQ’s full-year results, which showed the lender’s cash earnings jumped 83 per cent for the full year, to $412m. Excluding ME Bank, which it acquired mid-year, earnings rose 73 per cent.

The lender announced a final dividend of 22c per share.

Originally published as Bank of Queensland mulls vaccine mandate for staff