NAB Wealth counters media claims
National Australia Bank (NAB) has denied media suggestions that it had failed its financial planning customers, pointing out that it has compensated over 750 customers and paid out between $10 million and $15 million in compensation over the past five years.
NAB Wealth group executive, Andrew Hagger said the reports had failed to reflect that that where there had been problems, the banking group had moved to fix them.
The bank's response came in the wake of weekend newspaper reports which claimed poor financial planning practices and drew on the comments of Commonwealth Financial Planning whistle-blower, Jeff Morris.
However, Hagger claimed the bank had acted appropriately when the problems had been identified.
In a formal statement responding to the media report, Hagger said that when NAB was made aware of issues, it worked to fix them.
"Where we have problems we face into them. When this has meant providing compensation to our customers who have received bad advice, we have done so," he said.
"Over the past five years, we have compensated over 750 customers and paid out between $10 and $15 million in compensation in situations where we didn't get it right the first time. We have over 1.7 million customers and clearly we want our customers to get the right advice and good advice every time. But where we have problems we will face into them and fix them," Hagger said.
"We take these issues very seriously. When we identify or are made aware of issues we will always work to fix them. We perform regular audits and where we see problems we will highlight them because we want to fix them."
Recommended for you
The inquiry into the collapse of Dixon Advisory and broader wealth management companies by the Senate economics references committee will not be re-adopted.
After seven weeks of strong growth, Wealth Data analysis shows financial adviser gains are now tapering off and returning to a regular pace.
Count chief executive Hugh Humphrey has said FY25 was a “milestone year” for the business as it completed its Diverger integration, exceeding targets with $5.1 million in cost synergies.
US wealth manager Focus Financial Partners, which includes Australia’s Escala Partners, has appointed a chief strategy officer to fuel further Australian growth.
