Westpac will be fined an amount of $1.3 billion fine. This article talks all about How much will Westpac be fined. Westpac has agreed to pay the largest fine in Australian corporate history — a $1.3 billion civil penalty for more than 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering laws.
This is almost double the second largest fine of $730 million that was imposed on the Commonwealth Bank in 2018.
However, despite it being the largest fine in Australia’s history, many believe the penalty is inadequate.
This is because not only have all banking executives avoided jail terms, they have not even been charged with any criminal offences. So how did this happen?
Westpac and Money Laundering…What Happened?
In 2026, it was revealed that AUSTRAC had discovered over 23 million breaches of money laundering legislation. The total amount of illegal transactions was in excess of $11 billion.
The offending occurred through the Westpac international transfer system which allowed customers to transfer money overseas, undetected.
Some of the countries that funds were transferred to included the Phillipines, Mexico and other South-East Asian countries. It appears that at least 250 customers were able to conduct suspicious transactions to these countries. It has been alleged that these transactions were related to child sex trafficking in those countries.
There were also several hundred others individuals who were able to send funds overseas to purchase luxury goods such as cars, boats, homes. However these customers could not be precisely identified.
The reason?
AUSTRAC claims that Westpac refused to impose the global standard for international transactions (‘Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication’ also known as ‘SWIFT’) because they believed it was too expensive.
In lieu of SWIFT, Westpac set up its own system called LitePay. This was used for small transactions of $3,000 and below. They also set up the Australasian Cash Management (ACM) platform, capable of facilitating payments of up to $100 million.