Bankwest as we know it today is the product of an acquisition by Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank, in 2008. At the time, Bankwest was owned by UK bank Lloyds. However, it offloaded the Perth-based bank to CBA for an estimated $2.1 billion.
However, Bankwest’s roots go much farther back than that. It has claims to history dating back to 1895 when it started as a quasi-state-government-funded agricultural bank. From there it took on various iterations throughout the years.
Today, it can be hard to glean the exact size of Bankwest as its key financial information is enmeshed with CBA’s. CommBank’s latest results show its home lending portfolio has a 25% market share, while excluding Bankwest it’s more like 21%; this suggests Bankwest has about a 4% market share, or just under $90 billion of home loans on its books.
More recently, Bankwest raised controversy when it announced it would close all of its 60 branches and ATMs, and become a digital bank by the end of 2024. Fifteen of those branches, based in regional WA, will rebrand to CommBank.
Bankwest employs more than 3,000 people.