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Despite eye-watering profits, the banking sector is’throwing workers on the scrap heap while executives pocket bonuses’ and providing even less services.Michelle Pinireports.

This week, Big Four bank ANZ informed 3,500 employees they were losing their jobs via email.

Not wanting to be left behind, a second banking corporation, NAB, followed suit scarcely 24 hours later, announcing 410 redundancies.

And yesterday (11 September), Bendigo Bank also announced 158 layoffs.

These latest cuts follow Westpacs axing of 1,500 staff, Commonwealth Banks 164 job cuts and Bank of Queenslands 200 staff redundancies and offshoring of half its contact centre to India, earlierthis year.

According to union figures, Australias Big Four banks alone have purged 7,885 jobs in 2025.

In a statement, Finance Sector Union (FSU) president Wendy Streets said the union will be taking this to the Fair Work Commission and described the job losses as ‘shameful’.

She added:

Calls grow for new banking royal commission amid $8 billion scam losses

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BIG BOYS ANZ AND NAB

One of the worlds most profitable banks, ANZ, dismissed 3,500 employees by email.

ANZ boss Nuno Matos issued an apology for the automated redundancy emails. Matos also said the decision was”not about profits”, describing the mass sacking as “the right thing to do”.

The AFU’s Wendy Streets said:

In a comment apparently not meant to be satirical, an NAB spokesperson justified its 400-odd job cuts with thefollowing:

The spokesperson did not elaborate on how reducing the number of people available to deal with customers would improve the customer experience, but since most people have experienced so-called banking customer service, its fair to say the majority of Australians are not holding their breath for the big reveal.

Aside from their non-existent customer service, the Big Four banks are known for overpaying their executives, underpaying workers, committing assorted data infringements such as when personal customer information was found in a skip bin and, oh yes, flagrantly lying and cheating.

The other thing banks are known for is, of course, making money.

In the case of ANZ and NAB, their profits substantially increased in the last sector. ANZrecorded an after-tax profit of $3.64billion for the half year ended 31 March 2025, up 16 per cent on the previous half. And NABs retained profits increased by 3.4 per cent to $870 million.

Bendigo Bank profit surges as community groups get the boot

Bendigo Bank has pulled out of fundraising partnerships with community groups that have been drumming up business for corporate branches since 2004.

BIGGER FOR THE BANK BENDIGO

Meanwhile, once pitched as the community bank, Bendigo Bank is apparently no longer satisfied with its size and wishes to join the pissing contest with the bigger guys. The bank has been slowly doing away with customer service altogether by closing as many regional banks as possible and then bragging about it.

Bendigo Banks new advertising blitz coins the catchphrase,Big on Banking. Bigger for you” a rather implausible attempt to convince average Australians (who only ever went to Bendigo Bank precisely because it wasnt one of the Big Four) that bigger is suddenly better.

As Dale Webster recentlyreportedonIA, apart from sacking workers, Bendigo Bank also:

• pulled out of fundraising partnerships with community groups;
• announced the closure of ten branches and 28 agencies; and

• declareda $514.6 million profit.

This brings the total Bendigo Bank closures since 2018 to a grand total of 95 branches and 70 agencies, and leaves 56 towns with no banking services.

FSUnational secretary Julia Angrisano said, despite marketing itself differently, Bendigo Bankwas blindsiding workers like the big four banks.

She said:

Banks apologise for crimes: Sorry not sorry

Weve seen the odd apology from bank CEOs over the years for misconduct of a bank under their watch. But what has changed after that?

“THE RIGHT THING TO DO”

The 2019Banking Royal Commissions final report on the banks and associated financial institutions exposed systemic misconduct and a culture of choosing profits over customers, which it summed up as ‘a culture of greed’.

Among the many shocking misconduct findings,lowlightsincluded:

• charging 500,000 home loan customers incorrect interest rates for over ten years;
• rewarding brokers for misleading customers into larger and longer home loans than needed;
• charging fees for non-existent services;
• foreclosing on property when customers were not in default; and even,
• continuing to charge insurance premiums to dead people.

These egregious actstook place at a time of increasing growth for the banking sector.

During theprecedingGlobal Financial Crisis, however, the banks also received a government bailout to the tune of $120 billion.

Now, Australia’s banks, despite their latest eye-watering profits, have sacked a massive swathe of their workforce, outsourced call centres to overseas companies andclosed even more branches.

What is this story about? The profit motive is one thing, but this is not only about massive multinational corporations making mega-profits.

It is not only about closing branches, or sacking workers, or making efficiency improvements through the use of clever algorithms, such as artificial intelligence.

This is about one of the pillars of the community, our banks which provide jobsand safeguard our savings, and help small businesses start and succeed abandoning their traditional role of serving the community to become profit machines.

And if we end up with no one but very wealthy men and smart computers and wastelands where people once worked and flourished, we have nothing.

This is not only the opposite of the right thing to do, it is, as Ms Streets put it:

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Follow managing editorMichelle Pinion Bluesky@michellepini.bsky.socialand Independent Australia on Bluesky@independentaus.bsky.social, X/Twitter@independentausand FacebookHERE.

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