"I'm a strong believer in teaching our community and children the basics so they can make the best financial choices for themselves. I love seeing the increase in their confidence and drive at our workshops."

Ruby has been running Managing your Money (MYM) workshops in her community for three years.  She is a strong advocate for teaching financial education in schools because as a banking consultant she sees the challenges young people face with money when they leave school.  She finds it rewarding to help them make their dreams a reality.  

This year Ruby and a colleague Libby Collings worked closely with two local high schools to tailor MYM materials to the needs of their senior students.  This enabled it to be treated as part of the curriculum meaning the student were able to achieve NCEA credits.  

Matt Parr from Christchurch Boys High says, "What has been delivered is invaluable knowledge for these young men and something all teenagers need to know about - lessons I only wish I had received at the same age.” 

Westpac is the only New Zealand bank to publicly publish its exposures to both fossil fuel extraction and the clean technology and environmental services (CleanTech) sectors.  Since 2012 our lending to CleanTech companies has by 18% increased to $1.3bn, and lending to fossil fuel extraction and production has decreased by 55% to $318m, with lending to coal mining decreasing by 98%.  CleanTech includes businesses that reduce negative environmental impacts including renewable energy, green buildings, forestry, recycling and waste reduction. 

Westpac has a strong focus on continuing these trends and recognises this is one of its most significant opportunities to positively impact on the environment.

Reducing office waste has played a part in helping Westpac reduce its carbon emissions by 21% in 2017. 

Christchurch-based Westpac Facilities and Operations team leader, Paul Bonini, recalls the start of their waste reduction journey in 2015:

"Our landfill was 70% of our waste, and recyclables and organics only 30%."

By following the whole waste journey from the office to the cleaners to the waste management company, Paul and his team were able to make changes that have seen landfill reduce to 30% and recycling and organics increase to 70%. 

Desk bins were removed and Method recycling bins introduced, alongside an education campaign and an incentivised scheme for employees. Goals were set and cleaners weighed the waste nightly to measure progress. 

The Christchurch team is due to move to its new office buildings in 2018, and Paul's next task will be educating people about the sustainability aspects of the offices, such as an agile workspace, and working with Christchurch City Council on sustainable transport, to further reduce Westpac's carbon footprint.

This was due largely to our financing package to Accessible Housing to support their acquisition of Housing New Zealand stock in Tauranga.  Two other large scale social housing transactions were progressed to bid stage, Tamaki Regeneration and Christchurch Housing New Zealand stock transfer.

Comspec, when  founded in 2005, was supposed to be a “little recycling company that would keep us occupied and then I’d retire”,  says industry veteran Robert Fowler. Instead, the venture has grown into a significant industry player in “closing the loop” on a mountain of consumer and industry plastic waste.

The company essentially does two important jobs. The first – and this was Comspec’s founding mission – is to be a ‘one-stop solution’ for general plastic waste from South Island manufacturers, transforming it into high-quality resin.

The other role involves plastic milk bottles. Comspec buys bales of used bottles from commercial sorters and converts the plastic into an HDPE resin. Typically, that resin is used to manufacture industrial drainage pipes, although it’s also used for cable protection and other plastic products. If you’re looking for an image to sum up the journey involved here, visualise a plastic milk container winding up as part of that black corrugated pipe you see going into new subdivisions.

What’s the win for the environment here? Fowler says this waste would otherwise be destined for recycling in China.

“Think about the carbon miles involved in a milk bottle going to China to be recycled – it’s crazy,” he says, also pointing out that, “Three years ago, drainage pipe here was all made out of imported virgin material, whereas now, certainly in the South Island, it’s all made from recycled material.”

He says that there hasn’t been a lot of work done to quantify the carbon saving achieved by operations such as Comspec, “But there’s a figure bandied around in the States that for every tonne of resin you make, you save a tonne of carbon. And we’d do 20 tonne a day.”

Based on an article from a series of Pure Advantage profiles of New Zealand business leaders utilising technological solutions for a zero-emission future.

We've been awarded the DVFREE Tick which recognises our comprehensive domestic violence programme that provides a safe and supportive workplace for employees who are experiencing domestic violence. 

“Realising that domestic violence is actually a workplace issue was a revelation for me,” says Westpac NZ Chief Executive David McLean. 

“As a large employer, knowing that some of our staff members are suffering abuse from a partner or family member obliges us to do something to help them because we take our role to keep our people safe and secure seriously.”

“The DVFREE Tick requires much more than a domestic violence policy and provision for special domestic violence leave. We help in all manner of ways to ensure our people are kept safe. This could include a security plan, alerts that let us know if they need urgent assistance or other forms of support – whatever they feel they need."

Like banks across the world, Westpac is facing one of the biggest ever changes to the banking sector as customers demand greater control over the transactional aspects of their finances. 

The evolution of banking is directly linked to customers’ uptake of new technology. Today 70% of New Zealanders own a smartphone and active mobile banking users are growing at 20% per annum. Digital logins for Westpac have increased 26% and digital sales have increased 22% in the last year.

At the same time, transactions through our branches are declining. This presents many challenges. We need to ensure our physical network makes business sense but we also need to ensure we serve all our customers including those who are not yet active online. To meet this need we have increased the number of smart ATMs in our network. These ATMs can take deposits and dispense change. We also continue to partner with SeniorNet which helps older New Zealanders become digitally active. 

Responsible investing is an area of concern for some of our KiwiSaver customers.

In response to their feedback, Westpac’s investment arm BT New Zealand (BTNZ) introduced a new Responsible Investment Strategy. As part of that strategy, BTNZ has removed any underlying exposures, to companies involved in the manufacture of cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines, nuclear explosive devices and tobacco. BTNZ also excluded whaling and implemented an environmental social and governance (ESG) approach to investing across its portfolios. This means that we will actively engage, or require our investment managers to do so, with companies where we believe there are ESG issues. The aim is to influence these companies in a positive direction. 

Not only are scams becoming more common, they are also becoming more sophisticated and harder to spot.

While Westpac has systems in place to prevent hacks and other forms of theft, it is increasingly important that customers know what to look out for as scammers will try anything to get access to someone’s banking. The three main methods are phishing, phone scams, and credit card fraud. 

In response, we are educating our customers more on how to protect themselves.

Faster development and uptake of clean technologies through our banking services is the most effective way we can help reduce the use of fossil fuels. That’s why we’ve set green growth lending targets, are developing products that help customers reduce the upfront costs of cutting emissions and are setting an example by reducing our own environmental impact.

The challenge of meeting customer demand for new ways of banking is leading to a new operating model that includes a reshaping of our branch network and trialling different formats and self-service options.

We are very aware of the impact closing branches has on our employees, customers and communities.  

Our challenge is to continue to meet customers’ needs as their changing preferences require us to shift more investment into digital areas. Over the last few months Westpac has worked alongside leaders in communities where branches have closed to ensure we have ATMs in place to meet cash needs of those communities and to give the customers the confidence and knowledge to use digital services.