NAB axes late credit card payment fees for reliable customers

As part of a broader fee shake-up, National Australia Bank will no longer slug credit card customers with late payment charges — as long as they usually pay on time. Here are the details.

A CBD National Australia Bank branch.

National Australia Bank will no longer slug credit card customers with a $15 late-payment fee — but there’s a catch.

It will only waive the fee for customers who have a good track record for paying on time.

Customers who have paid the minimum amount due on their credit cards on time in the 11 previous months will be spared the fee, the bank has announced today.

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The change in policy will apply to credit card accounts held by consumers and commercial customers.

NAB said about 20,000 customers would benefit every month from the change in policy.

The bank has also announced that it is axing the $10-a-month NAB Connect fee for its 65,000 small business customers as part of a review of its 400 different bank charges.

National Australia Bank is in the spotlight.

NAB customer experience chief Rachel Slade said in a statement that the banking heavyweight needed to simplify the fees it charged.

It also needed to improve transparency around fees, she said

“We’ve heard from our customers that some fees are complex and confusing,” Ms Slade said.

NAB is dropping the fees as part of a broader charm offensive and an attempt to improve customer service following the banking royal commission.

The bank says that across all its products, it will remove 50 fees by the end of next month, “with a view to addressing hundreds more over the next two years”.

Macca’s perspective.

“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,” Ms Slade said.

NAB was heavily criticised in commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s final report, released in February, for its performance at hearings of the royal commission.

Former chief executive Andrew Thorburn has since left the group, and chair Ken Henry is also departing in coming months.

Philip Chronican, the former boss of ANZ’s Australian operations, has taken the reins from Mr Thorburn on an acting basis,

He will succeed Mr Henry as chair when the group names a permanent CEO.