Major bank commits to removing more fees

The big four bank has said that it is looking to “radically reduce” the number and level of fees charged to customers and improve the transparency around when fees are charged off the back of customer feedback.

NAB chief customer experience officer Rachel Slade commented: “We’ve heard from our customers that some fees are complex and confusing.

“We have more than 400 fees across our operations and we see a big opportunity to radically reduce this number by simplifying the way we charge fees, and in many cases, removing them altogether.”

The bank has committed to removing 50 fees charged to business banking customers by the end of June 2019, with a view to “ addressing hundreds more over the next two years”.

Among the fees to be abolished is the monthly $10 NAB Connect (internet banking for business customers) payment service fee and another nine fees associated with NAB Connect features. According to NAB, this will benefit around 65,000 customers.

NAB also said that it will waive the $15 late payment fee on consumer and commercial credit card payments for customers who have paid the minimum monthly amount due on time in the 11 previous months. This decision, which will take effect from July 2019, was made in recognition of “customers who have a track record of paying the minimum monthly repayment on their credit cards”.

The big four bank said the waiver will benefit around 20,000 customers every month.

NAB said it will also start sending SMS reminders to consumer credit card customers about their due dates and amounts. The bank said it believed that about 600,000 customer messages will be sent every month to help customers make their payments on time.

“We listen to customer feedback to help inform us on where we can make improvements. We will continue to take action – such as simplifying our fees – to be the bank that customers want,” Ms Slade added.

The move comes following the announcement that NAB would end its introducer payments program from 1 October 2019 and will no longer make referral payments to introducers from this date.

The move does not impact mortgage broker payments – but instead introducers, such as those highlighted during the royal commission hearings.

NAB also overhauled its introducer program last year, when it reduced its introducer network from 8,000 to just over 1,000 and ceased accepting referrals from introducers who operate outside the professional services industries.

[Related: Action on introducer loan fraud taken ‘far too late’: ASIC]