Westpac has announced that it has brought 1,000 Australian jobs back onshore, including its mortgage processing workers, with close to 100% of calls to be answered in Australia by the end of the year.
All customer-facing call centre roles are now based in Australia, with offices in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, with new jobs created in those cities.
Westpac recently announced the introduction of rapid antigen testing to facilitate their onshore processing teams at their call centre in Concord West, close to the worst of the New South Wales Covid outbreak.
Onshoring has been a huge issues as turnaround times have blown out, with many brokers blaming offshore loan processing as a key contributing factor in the slowdown that has occurred during the pandemic and housing boom.
CBA were the only Big Four bank to have their home loan processing based onshore throughout Covid, and enjoyed generally quicker turnaround times as a result.
“We said we would bring 1,000 jobs back, and we have,” said Westpac CEO Peter King.
“COVID has resulted in some of the highest levels of customer contact we have seen, and the new roles are focused on helping our customers manage the impact of the pandemic for both themselves and their businesses.”
“We continue to make changes that bolster how we support customers, and we will shortly have 100% of our customer calls answered by someone in Australia.”
“Great customer service is one of the most transferrable employment skills and we have been privileged to welcome so many high-quality people from different industries to the Westpac team.”
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