Westpac takes huge insurance charge against earnings
Charge is the latest blow for country's oldest bank
Westpac takes huge insurance charge against earnings
INSURANCE NEWS
By Roxanne Libatique
27 Oct 2020

Westpac has once again taken a significant blow against its earnings, only a month after it was hit with a penalty for the biggest breach of anti-money laundering laws in the country.

Bloomberg reports that Westpac suffered a whopping AU$1.2 billion charge against its second-half earnings to cover a record money-laundering fine and the accumulating cost of compensating customers for years of misconduct.

Charges included AU$568 million to write down the value of its software and its life insurance and auto-finance units; AU$182 million to compensate customers, including business borrowers and those wrongly-charged insurance fees; and AU$55 million from asset sales and revaluations.

Another charge saw it hit for AU$415 million for the money-laundering fine, including legal costs. The bank had previously provisioned AU$900 million for a settlement, but the cost skyrocketed after further breaches were uncovered.

Earlier this year, the bank deferred paying a dividend as bad-debt charges skyrocketed amid the COVID-19-induced recession. Last month, it was hit with a AU$1.3 billion penalty for breaching the anti-money laundering law.

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