NAB to licence branch staff

Branch staff would be licensed to provide advice under a plan being considered by National Australia Bank (NAB) chief executive Ahmed Fahour to boost the bank’s wealth management market-share.

“We have some excellent planners, but we have 800 branches and 6,000 staff in retail branches who will play an important role in the future,” Fahour told the Melbourne Financial Services Symposium last week.

“NAB will deliver an integrated financial services offering as we integrate MLC into the bank.”

Fahour said the bank was aware of financial services reform regulations and would licence any staff giving advice, but did not indicate how many staff were earmarked for the move.

Further integrating subsidiary MLC into the branch network would also be part of the plan.

“It is an awesome business at MLC and we are taking some of that culture and advice and permeating that into the bank,” he said.

“But we will have to do it carefully as we don’t want one and one making minus one. We want one and one to make four or five.”

Fahour said the branches would be providing holistic advice to meet the lifestyle goals of its clients.

“We have to make sure the retail banking operation can do this in the branches and this will include everything from insurance to estate planning,” he said.

“We are re-engineering processes, reducing complexity by making it easier for customers to do business with us and to help our staff to deliver truly integrated financial services.”