National Australia Bank : NAB welcomes first progress report on the Australian banking industry’s package of six initiatives

NAB today welcomed the first quarterly progress report by Independent Governance Expert, Ian McPhee AO on the implementation of six initiatives announced by the Australian Bankers' Association (ABA) on the 21 April 2016.

The aim of these initiatives is to improve protections for consumers, increase transparency and accountability and to build trust and confidence in banks.

NAB Group Chief Risk Officer and Chair of the ABA's Industry Strategy Working Group, David Gall said: 'As highlighted in Ian McPhee's report, the initiatives are 'significant', 'operationally complex' and the 'timetable demanding'.

'We believe this to be a positive as it demonstrates the priority and focus the industry is placing on delivering the reform package for our customers and stakeholders by the end of 2017. Importantly, we believe customers will begin to see the benefits of these initiatives well before the expected completion date.

'As an industry we have already made significant changes to keep up with the changing demands and high expectations of our customers. But we know we need to work harder.

'These reforms are the next important step in building trust and will make banking easier and more transparent for our customers and when things go wrong, easier to fix.

'NAB is committed to all of the industry initiatives and have prioritised them with regular review at NAB's Board and Executive Leadership Team,' Mr Gall said.

NAB activity

• Earlier this week, NAB announced the appointment of experienced consumer advocate, Catherine Wolthuzien as its independent customer advocate for small business and retail customers.

• We are strengthening the independence of our whistleblower program by outsourcing the call and email receipt of the Confidential Hotline.

• We are making strong contributions to the industry working groups set up on each of the six initiatives to make sure we are delivering the right outcomes for customers and keeping to the timeframe.

• We are very supportive of the high calibre independent reviewers chosen to oversee the reviews of the Code of Conduct, Phil Khoury and Product Sales Commissions and Product- based Payments, Stephen Sedgwick AO.