By Scott Murdoch SYDNEY, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Westpac Banking Corp non-executive director Peter Nash appeared to have survived an investor backlash due to his ties to the troubled Australian Securities Exchange, according to proxy votes shown at the bank’s annual meeting. Only about 40% of investors voted against his re-election as a director to […]
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Westpac director re-elected on proxy votes after investor backlash to ASX ties
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By Scott Murdoch
SYDNEY, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Westpac Banking Corp non-executive director Peter Nash appeared to have survived an investor backlash due to his ties to the troubled Australian Securities Exchange, according to proxy votes shown at the bank’s annual meeting.
Only about 40% of investors voted against his re-election as a director to the board, the proxy votes showed. Nash needed at least 50% support to be re-elected to the board and the final results of the vote will be known later on Thursday.
Two influential proxy vote advisors recommended investors vote against Nash because he previously served on the ASX board for six years during its recent upheaval.
The ASX, which is Australia’s stock exchange operator, is facing increasing regulatory pressure over a string of failures in recent years, including a trading and settlement outage last year.
Westpac’s annual meeting was underway in Sydney on Thursday, where climate protesters gathered outside to protest the bank’s lending to fossil fuel companies.
During the meeting, Westpac Chief Executive Anthony Miller called for stronger action from social media companies such as Meta to curb online scams, saying banks cannot tackle the growing threat to consumers on their own.
Miller said Westpac had spent more than A$500 million ($333.55 million) over the past five years on scam and fraud prevention, including new detection tools and customer-protection systems.
“But what’s clear to me is that Westpac, and the other banks, can’t solve the scams scourge alone,” Miller said. “To help keep Australians safe, we need more action from other players in the ecosystem, including social media companies like Meta.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Miller said recent initiatives from the lender had helped drive a 21% drop in scam losses this year and prevented customers from losing more than A$360 million.
Australian banks have been pushing for tighter responsibilities for digital platforms, arguing that a large share of scam activity originates on social media and messaging apps.
Meta last year said it has taken down some 8,000 so-called “celeb-bait” scam ads from Facebook and Instagram as part of an effort with Australian banks to curb the practice.
The scams used images of famous people, often generated by artificial intelligence, to trick consumers into giving money to non-existent investment schemes.
($1 = 1.4990 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Scott Murdohch in Sydney, additional reporting Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Chris Reese)