Banking News

NAB Commences Search for New COO

(28 August 2018 - Australia) NAB’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Antony Cahill has resigned to link up with Visa in the UK following fallout from the ongoing royal commission into misconduct in the banking sector. 

Mr Cahill will finish at NAB on September 14 to become Visa European Regions MD, commencing in January 2019. The bank's executive general manager of deposits and transaction services, Rachel Slade, a former Westpac Banking Corp executive, has been appointed "acting group executive of customer products and services", while CEO Andrew Thorburn stated that he would "consider next steps".

Mr Cahill performed a broad role that oversaw products and pricing, technology and payments, innovation, NAB Labs and NAB Ventures. He was also closely involved engaging with regulators and politicians, and was a public face of the bank, fronting several appearances at the House of Representatives standing committee on economics alongside CEO Andrew Thorburn. The unexpected departure has raised the prospect that NAB could replace Mr Cahill with former Westpac senior executive Jason Yetton, who left the peer-to-peer lender SocietyOne last week and narrowly missed the head role in its wealth subsidiary MLC. Former NSW premier Mike Baird, Chief Customer Officer for CIB is also now a front runner to take over from Mr Thorburn at the conclusion of his tenure as CEO.

The announcement comes at a time when competition is intensifying in the Bank’s core small business segment, with a prospect there will be three new banks in the Australian market  by the end of 2018 operating under unrestricted, full banking licences. The licences are to be held by start-ups Judo Capital, Volt Bank and 86400. New Prime Minister Scott Morrison strongly supported the need for more competition during his time as treasurer. Before the 2017 budget supported more new authorised deposit taking institutions (ADIs) to enter the market by streamlining application procedures, APRA had granted only one new banking licence in the last decade to Tyro.