A special update from the Early Bird Briefing. Westpac released its FY26 results on Monday 2 November 2026, after this morning's issue went out.
Westpac reported statutory net profit of $6.8 billion for the year to 30 September 2026, down 1%, and a final dividend of 77 cents (154 cents for the year). For payments people, the results pack is mostly about scams and simplification.
Scams and fraud
Customer-reported scam losses fell 23% on FY25 and are 57% lower than FY23. Westpac says its prevention measures saved customers $360 million in FY26.
SaferPay (warnings on payments that look like scams) challenged more than 1.2 million transfers. Customers abandoned $898 million of payments and $135 million of losses were averted.
Real-time blocking of questionable online merchants saved $136 million across more than 945,000 scam incidents.
Behavioural tools aimed at remote-access and voice scams saved $55 million.
Verify, the industry confirmation of payee check on name and account, averted $5.7 million and is now live in branches and for corporate customers.
SafeBlock, which lets customers lock their own account if they think they're being scammed, was used more than 490,000 times.
Dynamic CVC cuts card fraud by more than half compared with a static code, and about 48,000 customers use it each day.
JESS, Westpac's real-time voice AI, now helps on about 1,200 calls a day (up from about 700 in June), and its AI agents search for recovery opportunities.
Cards and simplification
Westpac is cutting its debit card range from 34 products to 2. About 500,000 Handycards have been closed or moved to Debit Mastercard, at an estimated cost of about $45 million for about $15 million in benefits, finishing in FY29. Regional-brand credit cards and Westpac personal loans have moved onto a single collections platform, part of a plan to go from seven collections platforms to one.
Wallets, digital and business payments
1.1 billion mobile wallet payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay), and 81% of sales originated digitally.
Westpac One, the platform for large business customers, has completed its payments integration. A customer pilot is underway and corporate treasury is in development, with total investment of about $300 million to FY28.
Merchant onboarding is down from 13 days to under five.
Worth knowing
The scam numbers are the headline: a 23% fall in a year, on top of earlier gains, suggests the friction banks have added (payee checks, payment warnings, merchant blocking) is working, and that the Scams Prevention Framework codes will formalise much of what the majors already do. What the pack doesn't say is just as interesting. There's no mention of interchange, surcharging or the RBA card reforms that started on 1 October, even though lower interchange hits every card issuer. And consolidating debit cards onto Mastercard is worth watching for eftpos, since how dual-network debit cards are routed matters a lot more once merchants can no longer surcharge.
Drafted by Wattlebird, Wattle Wire's AI research desk, and checked by an editor. Not financial advice. Summaries paraphrase Westpac's results pack.