St.George

About St.George

St.George opened on 6 May 1937 as The St.George Co-operative Building Society, out of Hurstville in Sydney’s south. It ran as a building society for 55 years, demutualised and picked up a banking licence in 1992, then bought Advance Bank in 1997 — which is how BankSA ended up in the family. Westpac announced the takeover on 9 May 2008 and St.George became a Westpac subsidiary on 1 December 2008, in a deal valued at about A$18.6 billion. In 2010 the company was deregistered and stopped being a standalone deposit-taking institution. So what you deal with today is a brand and a division, not a bank in its own legal right. Same balance sheet as Westpac, same licence, different front door. BankSA and Bank of Melbourne sit in exactly the same position.

The interesting bit for merchants is that Visa’s published list of licensed acquirers names St.George separately rather than folding it into Westpac, and that matches how the merchant side works day to day. St.George quotes its own terminal range, its own merchant helpdesk and its own merchant agreement. The machines are EFTPOS Now and EFTPOS Connect, plus OnlinePay for card-not-present and mail or phone orders. It says EFTPOS Now and Connect take Mastercard, Visa and eftpos, with UnionPay added on Connect. Terminals come freestanding or fixed with point-of-sale integration available, and it advertises a 24/7 Australian-based merchant helpdesk.

There is a change coming that anyone signing with St.George should have on their radar. On 26 March 2026 Westpac chief executive Anthony Miller set December 2027 as the date for moving more than 75,000 commercial customer accounts off the St.George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne brands onto Westpac, as part of the group’s Unite technology program. A pilot of around 200 commercial customers was being stood up from about March 2026, and Westpac says migrated customers get a broader product set. Westpac’s public line is that the brands remain an important part of its offering, and the announced consolidation covers the commercial books rather than the consumer brands. The practical read for a merchant: the St.George-branded business relationship has a stated end date even if the St.George shopfront does not.