NAB racketeers next to yield
The royal commission's impatience with NAB is palpable, suggesting it may not just be Andrew Hagger - named and shamed on Friday - but his CEO, Andrew Thorburn and the chair of the board, Ken Henry, whose swift exits from the bank look a real prospect.Two of Australia's biggest wealth managers, including NAB, displayed "a lack of insight into why certain conduct is unacceptable," the Hayne royal commission has been told by its chief advisers.There was, it is said, "a disregard on the part of the NAB Group for members of the relevant superannuation funds, for regulators and for the law."In a harsh assessment of topics gathered under a heading of "culture and governance", counsel assisting the commission use blunt language that must leave a question mark over the continued employment of a couple of very big names in Australian finance."To what extent ought it be concluded that the lack of insight is a reflection of leadership within the organisation," the counsels assisting ask of Andrew Hagger, from NAB and Chris Kelaher, from IOOF.The commission's impatience with NAB is palpable, suggesting it may not just be Hagger but his CEO, Andrew Thoburn and the chair of the board, Ken Henry whose swift exits from the bank are a real prospect."Even now, NAB has not agreed to test whether four of its five licensees have provided the services that it had contracted to provide in exchange for the fees it had charged its customers. "It cannot be satisfied that the Group has a legitimate basis for retaining all of those fees. No witness from NAB demonstrated insight into why this situation is unacceptable."This the fiery background to declarations by counsel assisting that "the evidence suggests a divergence between entities in terms of the level of insight of senior figures" making clear those in the frame for most scrutiny were "Mr Kelaher of IOOF and the witnesses from NAB."NAB supplied the most colourful material, and these findings from the end of last week must reverberate in the capital market this week.Andrew Hagger, NAB's chief customer officer, along with two subordinate executives, "demonstrated a lack of insight into the problems with the conduct of NAB Wealth and the trustee and an unwillingness to acknowledge problems with the behaviour of the entities for which they were responsible," counsel advised the commissioner, Kenneth Hayne.They said this "included behaviour that had continued until recently or in a few cases still continues."The counsel told Hayne that "NAB's behaviour over the last few years must be assessed as a whole," then summarised the rap sheet.NAB's "continued failure to agree to assess whether services had been provided in exchange for fees for four of its five advice licensees."The bank's "refusal over more than two years to carry out a proper review of whether its other licensees had provided the contracted services in exchange for fees paid by clients."Its "attempts to find a basis over several months in 2016 not to make full remediation to members who had paid fees,