Westpac
Australian bank and financial-services provider
Westpac Banking Corporation is an Australian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered at Westpac Place in Sydney.
Established in 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales, it acquired the Commercial Bank of Australia in 1981 before being renamed to Westpac Banking Corporation in 1982. Westpac is one of Australia's Big Four banks, and is Australia's first and oldest banking institution. Its name is a portmanteau of "Western" and "Pacific".
As of 2025 Westpac has 13 million customers worldwide, and employs around 35,000 people.
History
In 1982 Westpac Banking Corporation was formed by the merger of the Bank of New South Wales and the Commercial Bank of Australia. The new name, Westpac, was a portmanteau reflecting its mission of becoming a significant Western Pacific bank. The brand name incorporated the "W" that had been the logo of the Bank of New South Wales. Subsequent significant events:
1984: The original agreement between BNSW and the government in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands expired and Westpac and the government of Kiribati formed the Bank of Kiribati as a 51–49% joint venture. Bank of Kiribati also fulfilled the functions of a reserve or central bank.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Westpac” as australian bank and financial-services provider. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as australian bank and financial-services provider. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2031726. VIAF identifies the subject as 144276168. The Library of Congress control number is n82207241. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1817, 1981, 1982 and 2025.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Westpac”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Westpac primary sources, Westpac archive and Westpac research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Westpac” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.