NAB recruit Andrew Irvine begins work in quarantine hotel

The new head of National Australia Bank’s business bank is spending the first two weeks of his new career in quarantine in a Sydney hotel.

Andrew Irvine, previously head of Canadian business banking at Bank of Montreal, will eventually relocate to NAB’s home city of Melbourne.

The new head of National Australia Bank’s business bank is spending the first two weeks of his new career in quarantine in a Sydney hotel, after touching down on Monday night from Canada.

Andrew Irvine, previously head of Canadian business banking at Bank of Montreal, will eventually relocate to NAB’s home city of Melbourne.

His first move, however, was to announce the appointment of former Bankwest managing director Rowan Munchenberg as executive, business lending, for the business and private bank.

“NAB will deliver simpler, more streamlined products and processes for our customers and colleagues,” Mr Irvine said.

“Key to that is helping our customers by starting on their side of the table, thinking about what they need and what they value.”

Commonwealth Bank appointed Mr Munchenberg managing director of Bankwest in January 2017, succeeding Rob De Luca. He departed in October last year to “pursue new oppor­tunities”.

Mr Irvine came into contention for head of NAB’s business bank — the biggest in the country — after the incumbent, Anthony Healy, departed in March.

Mr Healy was regarded as the leading internal candidate to replace Andrew Thorburn, who quit with then-chairman Ken Henry in February last year after their leadership was called into question by royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne in his final report.

Instead of Mr Healy, the NAB board chose ex-Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan, who took up the position in December last year.

After an international search, Mr McEwan announced the recruitment of Mr Irvine in late June.

He said at the time that NAB had an ambition to grow its market-leading business bank by helping its customers grow.

“Andrew’s deep understanding of customers developed over a ­career in banking and his leadership in using data, insights and technology to meet their needs will be important to achieving this ambition,” Mr McEwan said.

The business and private bank, which contributes about 56 per cent of the group’s earnings, produced a 2019 cash profit of $2.84bn, down 2.4 per cent.

Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has swept through the country, destroying businesses and livelihoods.

Mr Irvine has arrived at a time when the business bank has been conducting check-ins with customers who have chosen to defer their loan repayments. Resources have been transferred to the frontline.

Mr McEwan said last month at NAB’s third-quarter trading update that good progress had been made on the check-ins, with 24,000 calls made. The number of deferred business loans was 41,000, with a value of $21bn.

From launch on March 28 to June 19, NAB had also approved 6000 business support loans under the government’s scheme, and had consistently lent almost $2.5bn a month during COVID-19.

While many businesses had been hit hard, NAB said there were some bright spots in the economy, such as regional business, agriculture and demand for equipment.

Innovative small and medium-sized businesses had also worked out how to get products into the hands of their customers by adapting their business models.

Mr Irvine said in a video message to staff from his Sydney hotel on Tuesday that the business had great potential.

“My focus at first will be listening, learning and meeting as many colleagues and customers as I can, and to hear from colleagues about what’s working, what we need to keep doing and pushing, and what things are holding us back in terms of delivering the best customer experience we can,” he said. “NAB is an amazing franchise — we’ve got scale, we’ve got history — and I can’t wait to become the best, not only the biggest, business and private bank in Australia.”