Ross McEwan told media that future unwinding of NAB’s prudent capital settings – including impairment charges and the capital buffer it maintains over and above the CET1 ratio – will depend entirely on the shape of the economy going forward, but that he was looking forward to a time when NAB’s surplus of caution was no longer required.
“The first thing is we want to grow the bank. Secondly we want to give the capital back where we don’t have a requirement for it, and thirdly we’ll do part of that by reducing the share count. NAB has for many years increased its share count to the detriment of its shareholders and I’d like to see that start to reduce,” Mr McEwan said.
While Mr McEwan predicted that unemployment would have a “low four” in front of it by next year, he also warned that “now’s not the time to be making big moves to try and get back into surplus” and that international borders won’t be open until the beginning of next year.
“One of the big issues we want to see coming through across the economy is wages up, and it’s not until you get into the low fours that we believe you’ll start to get wage increases across the board – not just in certain segments and sectors…that should be the priority, and I certainly believe that is the priority for the government and the Reserve Bank,” Mr McEwan said.
Mr McEwan also acknowledged increased competition from new digital players in the key business and private banking segment, but said that NAB was “the biggest business bank and we won’t be giving that up soon”.
“You’re seeing us start to grow market share in a competitive market place. I enjoy competition and so do my team, but we’ve got momentum…I have no fear that we’re going to lose market share for quite some time – we’re growing market share as the stats are showing,” he said.
