Westpac has paid back more than $50 million to staff after years of underpayment, the Fair Work Ombudsman has said.
The underpayments, which occurred over an 11-year period, were primarily caused by failures in Westpac’s systems, governance processes, and compliance oversight, the ombudsman said.
Further shortcomings included inadequate record-keeping, reliance on systems requiring manual adjustments, and input errors.
Westpac has repaid more than $50 million to staff. (Getty)
Employees were underpaid their casual loading and minimum wages for ordinary hours, allowances such as for higher duties and weekend penalties, termination payments, leave payments and more.
To date, Westpac has back-paid a total of more than $50.26 million, plus almost $9 million in interest and applicable superannuation, to nearly 47,000 current and former staff who were underpaid between January 2014 and February 2025.
Back-payments to individuals ranged from less than $5 to $56,085 in one instance. The average back payment was about $1000.
Individual payments ranged from $5 to more than $50,000 (iStock)
Also, $90,490 has been paid into the federal unclaimed monies account for former employees who could not be found.
Anybody can check if unpaid wages are being held for them.
Westpac has also signed an enforceable undertaking, which will see the corporation pay $800,000 in a “contrition payment” to the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth. (Louie Douvis)
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said an EU was an appropriate outcome as Westpac had fully cooperated with the investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying its non-compliance issues and ensuring future compliance.
“Westpac has made full back-payments for all underpayments owed to employees it could locate,” Booth said.
“This includes back-payments extending well beyond the six-year liability limitation period. Under the Enforceable Undertaking, it has committed to rectifying any future underpayments it identifies in full, plus interest and superannuation, and implementing stringent measures to ensure all staff are paid correctly in future.”
The EU will also see the bank commission an independent audit to check compliance with workplace laws.
The ombudsman began to investigate the wages and entitlements of staff in December 2020 after Westpac self-reported its underpayments.
“Westpac uncovered these issues as part of our own review in 2020 and when we found them, we immediately moved to put things right,” a Westpac spokesperson said.
“We’re genuinely sorry this happened. Paying our people correctly is a fundamental obligation which we take seriously and we apologise again to all affected employees.
“As part of our comprehensive remediation program, we repaid those affected including employees who have since left the company. We did not ask anyone who has been overpaid to repay any money.
“We’ve also updated our systems and processes, investing significantly to better manage entitlements.”