Loan applications falsified
As a minor Westpac shareholder I was amazed today to read in the Sydney Morning Herald that Westpac is reported to have paid $7.6m in compensation to customers for the fraudulent conduct of its subsidiary RAMS, by falsifying loan application details.
Over a decade ago I discovered that a Westpac bank manager had done that to farmers applying for a loan to purchase a property that had been recommended to them by that bank manager.
In another case decades ago Westpac allowed a young widow with young children to guarantee her brother’s business loan with a mortgage over her home. She had no financial or business knowledge at all. When the brother’s business failed Westpac sold up her home leaving her homeless.
It is no wonder that Christ turned over the moneylenders’ tables if they behaved as badly then.
Bank theft exempt from prosecution??
Why is the Federal Government not currently prosecuting the Westpac directors for fraud and breach of Corporations law. Why is Westpac allowed to hold a banking licence at all when its customers could easily be spread around other banks?
Ordinary thieves go to gaol
SMH also reports today on a mother and teens breaking into shops and stealing up to $150,000. That family could end up in gaol for far less criminality than Westpac directors who share glass of wine around the boardroom table as they laugh about the customers whose lives they have ruined.
Directors need to do what they are paid for
Bank directors are elected and paid handsomely to direct the bank’s operations in a way that is honest and helpful to customers. That responsibility requires them to ensure the design, application and monitoring of systems to do that. That’s their job!! There is a lot of merit in bank staff treating their customers as they would like to be treated themselves. That means honestly, fairly and justly. Nobody likes to be cheated. The bank officers are the loan experts. They know that loan repayments are required in good times and bad. They would not like to be trapped in an unaffordable bank loan. So they should not trap the poor unfortunate customers come to them looking for a loan. Loan seekers concentrate on approval of the loan instead of how hard it may be to repay.
Gaol for directors
Big Bank Billions have been earned on the back of fraudulently lending money to people who could never afford the loans, then robbing them blind with penalty interest rates for years, before selling them up. Gaol is the most appropriate place for Westpac directors right now. That might wake up the directors of the other banks who also make their profits and fees by directing staff to entrap customers in unaffordable loans.