Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) shares usually come with a pleasing level of passive income, more than what someone could get from a term deposit.
It's a good idea to remember that Westpac wants to keep shareholders happy, so dividends are likely to keep flowing unless something goes really wrong, like we saw at the start of 2020.
Westpac is one of the leading ASX bank shares, along with names like Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB), Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) and ANZ Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: ANZ).
By owning enough Westpac shares, an investor could generate $1,000 of passive income, or even more.
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What would it take to create $1,000 of passive income?
Westpac's dividends have been stable (with a little bit of growth) over the last couple of years. I think it's likely the ASX bank share will aim to continue gradually increasing its payouts in the coming years.
According to Commsec's projections, Westpac is forecast to slightly increase its annual payout in FY27 to $1.55 per share. That translates into a grossed-up dividend yield of 6.1% with franking credits and 4.2% without.
If an investor wanted to receive $1,000 of dividend income, it'd take 646 Westpac shares. If we include the franking credits as part of the income, it'd take 452 Westpac shares to generate that level of income based on the projected payout for FY26.
At the time of writing, that means an investor would need to invest approximately $23,600 or $16,500, depending on whether franking credits are included.
Is this a good time to invest in Westpac shares?
Analysts are not convinced that the Westpac share price is good value, despite the fact that it's down more than 10% since the 2026 high in April 2026.
According to CMC Invest, there have been eight analyst ratings on the ASX bank share within the last three months, with three of them being holds and five of them being sells. In other words, not a single buy recommendation among them.
The average price target from those analysts is $32.84, implying a possible decline of 10% from where it is at the time of writing. Therefore, the ASX bank share may not be a great investment to consider today.
According to the projection on CMC Invest, the Westpac share price is now valued at around 18x FY26's estimated earnings, at the time of writing.
