National Australia Bank's Financial Planner Banking (NAB FPB) division has signalled its intention to develop a similar specialist banking proposition for general insurance practices, while also announcing that it has expanded its team of specialist bankers.
NAB FPB national manager Shane Kirsch said the team wanted to provide a similar offering to general insurance practices so they too could access bankers that had expertise in their specific field.
He said the offering would also enable them to borrow money against their client books, rather than personal assets such as their homes.
"We have another team within NAB that offers the same specialist banking services to accounting practices, and with more firms diversifying their revenue streams, we're finding that both teams are working together more often these days too," Kirsch said.
The NAB FPB team wants to expand its offering to general insurance practices towards the end of 2010, as its clients are more often seeing the value in having a banker who specialises in their field and who can tailor solutions to their situation, Kirsch said.
In the meantime, NAB FPB has promoted two internal business banking managers. Domenic Palmato has been appointed as a specialist banker for South Australia and Jamie Stewart has been appointed as a specialist banker for Western Australia.
Kirsch said NAB FPB now had 27 staff members and would like to increase that number to 30 over the next two years, depending on how rapidly the specialist banking sector grew.
"Having a good spread of specialist bankers around the country demonstrates our commitment to delivering solutions to the advice industry at a local level," he said.
"The NAB FPB team currently banks more than 1100 practices."
