[9] In April 2009, Westpac mistakenly increased the overdraft limit of service station operator Leo Gao and his girlfriend Kara Hurring to $10 million instead of the approved $100,000.

This sparked the "runaway millionaire" case where Gau and Hurring took $6 million from the account and went on the run overseas.

[11] On 22 July 2014, the firm announced that it would pilot a host card emulation (HCE) mobile payments technology to customers.

The three-month trial, using Carta Worldwide HCE technology, enabled customers to securely store and access credit and debit card information in a remote and hosted 'cloud' environment, enabling customers to use their Android smartphones as digital wallets.

Soon after, in August 2014, Westpac NZ announced that it would be releasing the world's first augmented bank app,[13] which adds layers of functionality to the digital wallet by enabling users to check account balances, view previous spending behaviours, pay bills and locate their nearest Westpac NZ branch or ATM.

Westpac Migrant Banking has a representative office in London where accounts can be arranged, although the process can be done remotely from any country.

[18] In 2021, the Reserve Bank issued a formal warning to Westpac for failing to comply with anti-money laundering rules.

The Reserve Bank said Westpac's internal systems failed to detect and report almost 8,000 corporate transactions to overseas recipients.