Westpac refunds customers affected by fee waiver errors

6 August 2019

Westpac NZ is refunding $1.28m to around 60,000 customers due to fee waivers being incorrectly applied to their tertiary or graduate banking accounts between 2007 and 2017.

The action is in addition to refunds worth $5.7m to around 30,000 customers, disclosed in February this year, relating to incorrectly applied relationship rewards.

The two sets of refunds form part of a set of enforceable undertakings with the Financial Markets Authority and Commerce Commission to fix a range of banking packages where Westpac NZ identified errors.

Westpac NZ Acting General Manager of Consumer Banking and Wealth, Gina Dellabarca, said the issue was identified as part of a proactive review of products and services initiated by Westpac NZ.

In each case where errors were found, Westpac NZ independently identified the error, contacted the regulator, and initiated a process to inform and compensate customers.

“We apologise to all the customers affected, most of whom we have already refunded. In most instances the individual amounts are small and are the result of errors in manual processes. We want to assure our customers that we have now changed our systems so that the issue does not occur again.”

Ms Dellabarca said Westpac NZ was contacting existing and former customers about these remediation projects in line with procedures agreed with the regulators.

[ENDS]

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