Offshoring of 190 Westpac jobs to The Philippines sparks data concern

Westpac is to move almost 200 jobs in SA and NSW to The Philippines, sparking condemnation from the Finance Sector Union, which claimed workers held concerns about the security of customer data.

Finance Sector Union national secretary Julia Angrisano has condemned the offshoring of 190 jobs by Westpac.

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Westpac is to move almost 200 jobs in South Australia and NSW to The Philippines, sparking condemnation from the Finance Sector Union, which claimed workers held concerns about the security of customer data.

The FSU said about 190 roles from the bank’s mortgage operations, institutional banking and customer solutions, would be sent offshore. FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said the decision came three months after Westpac declared the bank was “in very good shape”,

“Westpac made $7bn in profit in the last financial year, a result the chief executive officer said would ‘set Westpac up for growth and success’. Is this what ‘growth and success’ looks like for Westpac workers?” she said.

“These are skilled bank workers managing complex commercial relationships and sensitive information. Our members who work at Westpac have told us about their concerns not just for their own jobs, but for customers and the security of their data.”

She said the union understood Westpac planned to transition all outsourced management and ethical review activity to Concentrix.

“We’ve seen what can happen when important work goes offshore – something as important as ethics being offshored can create dangerous implications and have flow on effects.”

The union will write to the premiers of NSW and South Australia to seek their intervention.

A Westpac spokesman said the banks employed 30,000 workers across the country.

“From time to time, we change the way we operate and this can impact some roles and responsibilities,” the spokesman said.

“When this happens, we work closely with employees to provide tailored support and assistance with career transition.

“We try to keep as many ­employees in the Westpac Group as we can, through retraining and redeployment.

“These changes are in head office and operational functions and represent around half a per cent of our workforce.”

The FSU said workers were concerned about how account information would be handled, with one worker, who declined to be identified, saying “it is risky to send this information to Manila”.

“I never thought this role would have been outsourced to an offshore ‘partner’ given the complexity and compliance risks associated with the complex ­accounts we work with,” another worker said.

A third employee said: “This is only going to tarnish Westpac’s reputation, result in complaints and put our compliance and regulatory obligations at risk.”