NAB to take $130 million hit as yet more staff underpayments uncovered
National Australia Bank will put aside another $135 million to cover yet more staff underpayments uncovered by a widening payroll review that is already six years old.
Announcing quarterly results on Monday, NAB flagged a 4.5 per cent increase in this financial year’s operating expenses to meet “further payroll issues” identified by the review.
The probe was launched in 2019 to initially look into how 730 NAB employees were short-changed about $850,000, but it has since exposed widespread underpayments across the bank that have already cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.NAB, which has invested in a new payroll platform, on Monday said it now expected to spend $130m for the 2025 financial year on the review and “remediation of payroll issues”, but that amount could go even higher.
That’s on top of $250m of repayments and other costs incurred between 2020 and 2022 alone.
“This ongoing review and investment and the work undertaken to transition to a new (staff) enterprise agreement has helped identify further payroll issues,” NAB said.
“As a result, NAB has initiated a broader review into payroll-related benefits under current and certain historical agreements.”
NAB’s group executive of people and culture, Sarah White, insisted “paying our colleagues correctly is an absolute priority”.
“We are sorry and apologise to our colleagues that this has happened and have commenced remediating those impacted.”
NAB’s results for the three months to June 30 showed the still growing underpayments problem contributed to a flat cash profit of $1.8 billion for the period, lower than its first-half average.
Revenue was 3 per cent higher, with business and private banking growing 4 per cent. including record June monthly business lending balance growth of $4.6b. However, that was offset by increased impairments of $254m and a 3 per cent increase in expenses.
Home lending improved 2 per cent over the quarter, while deposits growth was flat but stood at 6 per cent for the first nine months of the 2025 year.
Operating expenses are tipped to grow 4.5 per cent for the year. “This includes costs associated with a program to identify, rectify and remediate payroll issues ... which is disappointing and must be fixed”.
