(Reuters) -The Australian banking trade union said on Thursday that Westpac Banking Corp, one of the country's top lenders, has cut 132 jobs across divisions, with some of these roles being shifted to companies in India and the Philippines.
From the bank's risk division, 62 roles are being reduced at a time when the country faces an "unprecedented level" of scams and cybersecurity threats, the Finance Sector Union (FSU) said in a statement.
The job cuts across the risk and operations divisions come on top of the 20 layoffs in January at its sales support unit in the Mortgage Services division, which were outsourced to Concentrix Corp, FSU said.
"From time to time, we change the way we operate and this can impact some roles and responsibilities," Westpac said in an email response to Reuters.
The bank, without clarifying the exact number of jobs affected, added that "these changes are in the head office and operational functions, and represent less than half a per cent of our workforce".
"Westpac's strategy of continually outsourcing jobs to external service providers does nothing for staff morale and sends the message that staff need to toe the line or their jobs could be offshored," FSU National Secretary Julia Angrisano said in a statement.
About 50 roles from the lender's operations unit will be transferred to information technology companies such as Genpact Ltd, TATA Consulting Services and Concentrix.
"Instead of running an integrated banking operation, Westpac now looks more like a patchwork of third-party providers," Angrisano said.
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
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