It happens to farmers just like other bank customers

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 home loan application details. But farmers can be sure that it happens to farmers perhaps even more than to home owners. But the farmers grin and bear it. Over a decade ago I discovered that a Westpac bank manager had done that to farmers applying for a loan to purchase a neighbouring property . 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.

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? The answer is that Australian borrower do not know how to make it happen. Via parliament is the answer.

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 chat  around the boardroom table about the farmers whose lives they have ruined.

Directors need to do what they are paid to do

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!!

Gaol for directors

Farms held for generations get sold up because of this sort of blatant deliberate bank dishonesty. Big Bank Billions have been earned on the back of fraudulently lending money to farmers who could never afford the loans given the variability of seasons, commodity prices and government policy. 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.