Undervalue?, page-67

And right on cue @madamswer, Westpac announce a $115m write down on "Capitalised Software".

I haven't checked the notes to WBC's financial accounts lately, but I recall the bank having sunk something like $8bn into capitalised software (I'm not sure what the current carrying value is but it is sure to be in the several billions of dollars), which gets amortised over at a rate of close to a billion each year, if i recall.

And, as you know, with the rapid changes in technological advancement, for a CFO and the auditors of a very large institution to be able to exactly match amortisation charges with useful software life is impossible.

So for WBC to be playing some catch-up on their rate of amortisation comes as no surprise.

In fact, it happens just about every year.

It's simply the nature of the imperfect beast that is amortisation deeming.

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