Retail Industry News
Cameron Clyne bets on cut-price retail banking for NAB
Monday, 29, March 2010
But as the National Australia Bank chief's presentation to an investor conference in Hong Kong last week showed, there is no let-up in the challenge of satisfying investors impatient for results, on the one hand, and the long-term task of turning NAB around, on the other hand.That makes no allowance for the bank's poor performance over the last decade or more.
Mr Clyne outlined a coherent strategy that explained the bank's move to bulk up in wealth (less reliance on wholesale funding, regarded by ratings agencies as the Achilles heel of the domestic banking system) with the proposed $4.6 billion Axa Asia Pacific Holdings acquisition.But when he switched to the retail bank, and its customer-friendly initiatives to abolish unpopular account-keeping fees and limit last December's rate hike to 25 basis points, he sounded more like the chief executive of an upstart challenger bank than a large incumbent.
