While the rumours are building over National Australia Bank slowing, or even shelving, its "NextGen" project to overhaul the technology platform that supports the bank's core banking applications, one NAB executive yesterday used a media interview to frame expectations for a project rarely discussed outside the bank.Gavin Slater, group executive group business services at NAB, told FST Media that "NextGen will deliver a range of capabilities to our businesses over the next five years, rather than in one implementation, so progress can easily be measured and managed against milestones and stage gates."The five-year reference is of interest in the context of one earlier interview (published in Banking Day in September 2009) in which the bank's chief information officer, Adam Bennett, said that the bank was "trying to think around a three-year time horizon, but there will be subsequent work after that."So far NAB has migrated only the UBank deposit product to Oracle's i-flex platform.Slater provided FST Media with his version of what the project is all about. "NextGen is a multi-year program to help NAB become more efficient, less complex and more competitive," he said."NextGen will focus on change to a range of banking systems, finance and risk systems, processes and customer channels to make it easier for our customers to deal with us and easier for our people to do their jobs."