Whistleblowers Protection Policy
At Heritage, we place great importance on fostering a culture that encourages staff and others to speak up about issues and conduct that concern them.
1 July 2018
Heritage Bank places great importance on building a bank that our customers, our staff and our communities can be proud of. One way we do this is by fostering a culture that encourages staff and others to speak up about issues and conduct that concern them. This may include reporting serious misconduct, dishonesty, illegal activity, or even something that just doesn’t feel right.
We take our risk culture seriously and understand our responsibility for the trust people place in us.
That’s why we have in place an independent external hotline service that enables whistleblowers to safely raise their concerns. Whistleblowers can be any directors, managers or employees (current and former) of Heritage Bank, or they might be contractors or consultants, or even customers.
Our Board and senior management team strongly encourage people to call out and report any conduct they believe to be inappropriate. We acknowledge that whistleblowers may put themselves in difficult or stressful circumstances to provide information about a matter. As such, we have processes in place to provide the appropriate support to those who raise concerns.
How do people report their concerns?
There are a variety of ways our staff, customers or others associated with Heritage Bank can report any concerns about conduct they believe doesn’t feel right.
- Internally, whistleblowers within Heritage can refer to the Heritage Bank Whistleblowers Protection Policy for details about available channels.
- Whistleblowers may contact Stopline, an independent external hotline service:
- 1300 30 45 50 (Australia)
- heritagebank@stopline.com.au
- http://heritagebank.stoplinereport.com
- Whistleblowers may also report the matter to any of the following directly:
- ASIC;
- APRA;
- An appropriate Commonwealth authority
