Bob Melrose, Executive General Manager, NAB Retail, provided this statement on behalf of NAB to the ABC’s 7.30 program: 

“At NAB we aim to become Australia and New Zealand’s most respected bank. We will get there by putting the customer at the heart of everything we do, and holding all of our people to high standards for ethical conduct.

We are unable to comment in detail on our former NAB employee – however we can confirm that she ultimately resigned from NAB.

We stand by our fair performance management processes.

Regarding NAB’s approach to product based sales and commissions, customer-facing employees in our branches provide help and guidance to identify ways in which we can help our customers meet their goals. Our people are trained on our product features and benefits, to help identify which products can help meet our customers’ individual needs.

But we know more needs to be done on the critical area of product sales commissions and product-based payments. NAB fully supports the review of product based payments and product sales commissions being conducted by Stephen Sedgwick on behalf of the ABA, and we intend to implement the findings of this review.

This year we have also moved away from performance-based, fixed pay increases for customer service and support staff. They will now receive a standard pay rise of 3% per year, under our 2016 NAB Enterprise Agreement – negotiated with the Finance Sector Union.

Safeguards are also in place to ensure we all meet rigorous conduct and compliance standards.

At NAB everyone has a balanced scorecard which includes both financial and non-financial objectives. Performance at NAB is equally balanced against what is achieved based on the scorecard as well as how our people demonstrate NAB’s values and their behaviour.

At NAB we are committed to providing our customers with the right products, the right services and the right advice.”