The New Zealand Financial Markets Authority announced that Westpac will pay a NZD 3.25 million penalty after admitting, in civil proceedings, to misleading customers entitled to advertised discounts and to overcharging some business customers, in breach of the fair dealing provisions of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. The conduct affected 24,621 customers and resulted in NZD 6.35 million in overcharges. The admitted misrepresentations related to historic failures to provide advertised discounts under Westpac’s Employee, Gold and Platinum packages, failures to deliver benefits under another advertised packaged arrangement for personal and business customers, and failures to honour agreed pricing for business customers holding a Business Transact Account. The FMA attributed the issues to deficiencies in Westpac’s systems that meant the bank could not reliably deliver contractually agreed discounts; it also noted Westpac has remediated impacted customers and fully cooperated with the investigation. In his penalty decision, Justice Venning accepted there was no suggestion of deliberate or wilfully misleading conduct, but found the bank’s systems were insufficient.
New Zealand Financial Markets Authority 2025-05-02
New Zealand Financial Markets Authority secures NZD 3.25 million penalty from Westpac for misleading discount and pricing representations
The New Zealand Financial Markets Authority announced that Westpac will pay a NZD 3.25 million penalty for misleading customers and overcharging, affecting 24,621 customers with NZD 6.35 million in overcharges, due to system deficiencies. Westpac has remediated affected customers and cooperated with the investigation, with no evidence of deliberate misconduct found.