Hello

I have just been in to the local Halifax branch and they have told me that they have / are taking over Westpac.

Can anyone already in Oz confirm this??

I was just thinking that this may make the transferring of my money a little bit easier.

Thanks
Mark

I bank at Westpac but haven't heard this. If it's true I'll be moving my account sharpish I can tell you !!

Can I ask why?, or this a personal reason due to experience?

Have not heard or seen anything on this. Where did you see it?

Mark

definitely personal experience in the UK. Wouldn't touch them with a barge pole now. They were fine when everything was 'normal' but as soon as I wanted something different they couldn't cope. They deducted charges from my account for a debt on my exes account when they had no authority to. I had to go down the legal route before I got my money back. Never again. Westpac, so far, have been good.

Are you sure they didn't say BankWest?? BankWest are already part of the HBOS Group of companies. Maybe the story is getting confused.....

The girl definately told me Westpac as this is who I planned to open the account with anyway.

I am not saying though that whoever in branch told her this was correct.

Mark

She's talking cobblers. HBOS own Bankwest who are in middle of a massive rollout of branches in the East Coast [I worked on the new loan software to handle this]. The long term plan of HBOS is to take on the major ozzie banks and they have the financial muscle to do it. The competition regulator wouldn't allow them to buy Westpac anyway.

Thanks for the info.

Mark

I haven't heard that but there is a company that transfer your funds from your bank account to a westpac account for no charge
they are called hifex

I've been in oz for 26 years and can say that wespac is the best bank over here by a long chalk. As for the UK, I bank with Nationwide and never get charged a penny for for international transfers through my debit card.

I don't think HBOS would let the news slip to a branch worker before releasing the news to the shareholders and media etc. I used to work for HBOS by the way and they are ****

What is it about Westpac that's particularly good?

well i hope they dont take them over - i start work with them in a week!