Westpac and the ANZ have suspended dividends payments. The National Australia Bank has slashed them. The peculiarities of our tax system explain why retirees hate this more than they should.
Shareholder activism involves directly engaging with directors and executives of companies to effect change.
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Westpac’s 154 page financial statement will be a challenge for shareholders attending Thursday’s annual general meeting. In the early 2000s, it was only 35 pages.
The trouble with looking for transactions ‘consistent’ with ‘known’ patterns ‘indicative’ of child exploitation payments to countries with ‘known’ risks is that countless legitimate payments exhibit similar features.
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Anti-money laundering rules give the comfort of doing something, but prevent surprisingly little crime.
Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer and chairman Lindsay Maxsted. We could expect more of such folk but it might be more constructive to look for ways to help them do their jobs better.
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Board directors of our biggest companies simply aren’t equipped to take on management. An idea floated 50 years ago could help.
Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer will step down with $2.68 million. Had he stayed on he could have received share rights worth $20 million.
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Westpac’s decision to shut down its LitePay money transfer system will hurt people relying on remittances throughout the Pacific region.
Westpac is “deeply sorry” and has pledged to spend $18 million over three years tackling the online sexual exploitation of children in the Philippines.
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The number one commandment of the anti money laundering law is “Know your customer”. AUSTRAC is alleging Westpac didn’t, and didn’t seem to want to.
Westpac has its Annual General Meeting on December 12. “No doubt, there’ll be some very hard discussions between now and then,” Joshn Frydenberg said.
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The government at the weekend piled on more pressure for Westpac heads to roll over the bank’s money laundering scandal, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg saying the affair had a long way to play out. “These…
Australia’s anti-money-laundering agency has accused Westpac’s senior management, including chief executive Brian Hartzer, of indifference to the bank’s anti-money-laundering obligations.
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It’s no wonder corporate wrongdoing occurs when the profits from wrongdoing outweigh the costs of being caught and punished.
“[The Westpac scandal] comes at a bad time for the government which has legislation before parliament to crack down on union behaviour that goes off the rails, and here you have business behaviour being even worse,” says Michelle Grattan.
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University of Canberra VC Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan discuss this week in politics, and talk about what to expect in the last parliamentary sitting fortnight, which starts this Monday.
The first kangaroo-leather bound ledgers of what became Westpac, photographed in the Westpac archives.
Westpac archives
The Australian Banking Association says ‘nearly 80% of bank profits go straight back to shareholders’, the majority of whom are ‘everyday Australians’. Is that right?
Commonwealth Bank chair Catherine Livingstone (left) and CEO Ian Narev.
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