NAB executives should be obsessed with working for customers, interim chief executive Phil Chronican said as he promised change at the scandal-hit lender.
Mr Chronican started in his post on Friday following the abrupt resignation of his predecessor Andrew Thorburn, who was last month criticised in the financial services royal commission's final report. In an internal email sent to the bank's 100 most senior executives on Thursday, Mr Chronican said he agreed with the Royal Commission's finding that NAB was not meeting the expectations of its key stakeholders. "We are the bank's most senior leaders: we need to run the bank - and we need to change it," wrote Chronican, who was a non-executive director on the NAB board when tapped for the interim role. "We need to bring the same obsession to customer outcomes that airline companies do to safety." His first day in the top job coincided with the arrest of a former supplier accused of defrauding NAB of millions of dollars. NAB said it was cooperating with police, with the alleged fraud involving a former staff member. "If the alleged fraud is proven, it represents a most serious breach of trust by a former employee," the bank said in a statement on its website. During the royal commission, the bank admitted its subsidiaries wrongly charged fees to thousands of customers without providing them with services. In his email to executives, Chronican also said the bank was focused on ensuring fair compensation to customers for its wrongdoing. "I am focused on making sure we compensate customers as quickly as possible; and on fixing the issues that caused the failure." The rate of house price declines slowed in February, but not by enough to dissuade economists that Reserve Bank rate cuts are just around the corner.
The national median home price fell 0.7 per cent in February to $524,478, according to data released Friday by CoreLogic, a level last seen in September 2016. That's down 2.7 per cent for the quarter and 6.3 per cent for the year, although the monthly decline eased relative to those recorded during the traditionally slow December and January months. But despite last month's bounce for Sydney and Melbourne's auction clearance rates, and a slowing in momentum in monthly price declines, AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver said he was doubtful it meant the property market was stabilising just yet. "Ongoing home price falls in Sydney and Melbourne will depress consumer spending as the wealth effect goes in reverse and so homeowners will be less inclined to allow their savings rate to decline further," Dr Oliver said. "It’s also a negative for banks and is consistent with our view that the RBA will cut the cash rate to one per cent by year end, starting around August." He said the pricing weakness is now at levels lower than when then RBA started cutting rates in 2008 and 2011. Dr Oliver anticipates an overall 25 per cent top-to-bottom fall in Sydney and Melbourne, with prices bottoming out in 2020. CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless cited tightening credit as having a broad dampening effect on buying activity in regions that previously experienced rising prices at a sustainable pace. Hobart was the only capital city to record a rise in February and in the quarter, lifting 1.1 per cent over the past three months to $457,186. It's also the annual leader with a 7.2 per cent rise. Housing prices in Sydney led the decline annually, down 10.4 per cent to an average of $789,339 - for its first double digit annual decline since the early 1980's. Melbourne closely followed at 9.1 per cent lower to $629,457, with Mr Lawless saying double digits are also on the horizon for the Victorian capital. CoreLogic blamed the substantial Sydney and Melbourne declines on the long-running reduction in investment lending. Demand for rental properties across every capital city apart from Darwin prompted weekly rents to edge higher over February. |
ArchivesCategories |