Statement on NAB’s corrective disclosures to customers
Between 2007 and early 2016, the Financial Services Guide and Statement of Advice templates that NAB Group licensed financial advisers provided to customers were not updated to include details of new investment managers that the NAB Group had acquired or taken a shareholding in. This meant that customers did not receive information disclosing the relationship between the NAB financial advice licensee and certain NAB Group product issuers that their adviser may have recommended they invest in.
Separately, between late 2012 and early 2016, the Statement of Advice templates that advisers received from NAB instructed customers to refer to their Financial Services Guide for full disclosures of relationships. This was intended to make the Statements of Advice easier for customers to read, but they should have included full disclosures.
In late 2015, NAB identified these errors during a review. We notified ASIC shortly after, and have been working with them closely since to correct them, and to improve our processes.
Quotes attributable to Greg Miller, NAB Executive General Manager of Wealth Advice:
“For some years now, NAB has been on a journey of simplification, seeking to make things easier for our customers and to provide more investment options for them. Unfortunately we did not execute some of these changes well. While simplifying some of the documentation that we send customers, and while expanding our range of investments, we omitted disclosures that are important for our customers to receive.”
“We apologise to our customers, and want to assure them that they did not impact the quality of advice they received from their adviser, and there is no impact on their investments or portfolios.
“Since identifying and notifying ASIC of these errors, we have worked to correct them, and to improve our processes to try to ensure they do not happen again.
“We are committed to transparency and have contacted, advised, and corrected information for customers via mail and the MLC website. Customers with further concerns can contact NAB’s dedicated hotline on 1800 035 687.”
