NAB CEO issues assurance on manager punishment

National Australia Bank (NAB) has reassured a Parliamentary Committee that it will be internally pursuing management personnel as well as planners over instances of incorrect witnessing.

Appearing before the House of Representatives Economics Committee review of the four major banks, NAB chief executive, Andrew Thorburn sought to reassure Labor’s Madeleine King that the bank would not only be focusing on planners but would also be applying scrutiny to its management ranks.

King noted reports that planners stood to lose 25 per cent of their bonuses over the incorrect witnessing issue and asked the NAB chief executive whether “any executives received any negative treatment or punishment as a result of these offences?”

Thorburn said that not only would the bank be looking to management responsibility but that he would be personally playing a role in the review.

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“…we're going to go up the line. We do know that we made a statement about how the numbers who had self-reported that they'd done it were going to be dealt with. But we haven't completed the full review of everybody going up the line and that will be done,” he said.

King said there was an understandable concern that some of the more junior workers in NAB might be “thrown under the bus, to put it bluntly, and suffer more harsh consequences than those in leadership positions who should have been aware and who should be leading the culture”.

She asked Thorburn whether this problem was being addressed, to which the CEO answered “yes”.