St George briefed its 5500 staff nationwide yesterday, outlining the dismantling of the bank's divisional matrix structure and a senior executive shuffle from September 1 that will result in a new structure organised by geography.
Newly appointed managing director for Victoria Peter Lock said staff had been redeployed, and no redundancies would result from the revamp to improve St George's local banking model.
"There's people that have been moved around but everyone has fallen back into a job,'' he said.
"It's a cost-neutral, position-neutral restructure designed to be revenue accretive.''
He said customer-facing staff will not be affected, and the lender has been advertising for another 100 new customer-facing employees.
In 2010 another five branches will be added to St George's 32 branch-wide network in Victoria as the lender refines its relationship banking model, he said.
St George currently has 390 branches nationwide, including 120 branches from subsidiary BankSA.
The lender was dependent upon shrinking securitisation markets for funding in 2008 before Westpac's $15 billion takeover on December 1, 2008 and now aims to be a niche player standing between the big four banks and its triple-B rated regional competitors.
Now with financial backing from AA-rated Westpac and Westpac-manufactured products, St George is hoping its brand will appeal to customers wanting an alternative to the big four.
St George and parent Westpac have been chasing market share of retail deposits and mortgages in recent months, and Mr Lock said this was "most definitely'' a primary reason for the restructure.
"We recognise that being close and local is the key to getting those local strategies that represent those markets we operate in closer to the ground and that drives a better customer experience,'' he said.
"A better experience creates advocacy and advocacy creates customer acquisition.''
In July, Westpac grew its market share of retail deposits by 1.7 per cent to 14.48, and St George expanded its share by 1.1 per cent to 8.94 per cent, according to Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) data.
Nine months after Westpac's takeover of St George, Westpac says it is on track to deliver $120 million in cost synergies by the end of fiscal 2009 from the banks' integration.
Westpac will report its fiscal 2009 result to September 30 on November 4.
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