NAB faces fresh misconduct claims over false witnessing
Georgia Wilkins
27 May 2017
Signing on the dotted line is considered a solemn act, something that involves the utmost care and consideration.
This could be particularly so when holding a pen above a form that will determine who will rightly receive your superannuation should you die.
But for financial planners, the task of getting documents signed and witnessed can be monotonous and time consuming – time that could be spent meeting ever increasing sales targets.
That may explain why financial planners inside National Australia Bank's wealth division have been routinely cutting corners.
In particular many in NAB's hundreds-strong workforce have apparently been falsely witnessing death beneficiary forms – legally binding documents that determine who gets a person's superannuation when they die.
The practice is not illegal but marks a significant breach of the bank's code of conduct and may impact its licence conditions as well as potentially causing headaches for those working through the estates of deceased clients.
The revelation comes at a time when the banking industry it is trying to salvage its reputation in the wake of other scandals affecting wealth and superannuation customers and as the big banks make renewed pledges to rebuild trust within the community as they fight the government's new $6.2 billion bank levy.
Fairfax Mediacan reveal NAB financial planning became aware of instances of "false witnessing" in November last year during a routine review of an adviser.
Since then it has made moves to investigate the problem internally.
It is understood the breaches, which involve planners incorrectly witnessing documents in the absence of clients, could go back more than five years and involve people across its planning network.
This is a culture designed to maximise and achieve sales revenue at all costs.
The bank says it believes no client is out of pocket due to the practice and is not yet aware of any client that has been negatively impacted.
"We've become aware that some of the nominations have not been completed completely," NAB head of financial planning Tim Steele told Fairfax Media on Friday.
"This is clearly wrong and inconsistent with our expectations and code of conduct."
Planners 'scapegoats' for systemic problems
Despite that assessment, NAB has opened an amnesty for planners who "self-report" the misconduct, meaning those that come forward will avoid being terminated and instead have up to 25 per cent cut from their bonus.
That arrangement was announced to a national meeting of financial planning staff on May 10.
NAB notified the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on May 18 – six months after the bank first became aware of the issue.
ASIC said it was aware of the matter but would not say what actions, if any, it would take.
NAB said it had not contacted any customers about the matter as of Friday.
The Financial Services Union, which as been vocal in criticising the sales culture of the big banks, says false witnessing has been standard practice for years and the bank was making planners scapegoats for a systemic problem.
"This is a culture designed to maximise and achieve sales revenue at all costs," FSU National Secretary Julia Angrisano said.
"We can't have another example of frontline workers being thrown under the bus because of something that is systemic in practice.
"We need to look higher up and ask how was this the case for so long?"
The bank denies that high sales targets are pressuring low-level planners into falsifying documents.
"We don't believe there was any ill-intent here," Mr Steele said.
'Moving things forward'
In an email to financial planners on Tuesday, Mr Steele said while not condoning the behaviour, the bank acknowledged the misconduct may have happened "in the spirit of moving things forward" for customers.
"There is no indication that anyone received any personal gain in not following the correct process," he told planners.
He has also said junior staff could bet let off the hook (as demanded by the union), saying consideration would be given to any "direction or expectation" that was issued by senior planners.
"While all employees are accountable for their actions, a different outcome may be appropriate in circumstances where the support staff team member is able to demonstrate they acted under instruction/direction from a financial planner or senior staff member," he said.
NAB would not say how many instances of false witnessing it had encountered, but the union has been told there are 17 cases being investigated, many understood to be junior staff acting under instruction.
Trustees retain discretion
The focus of the problem is death beneficiary nominations.
The nominations are legal documents that determine who gets a person's superannuation or life insurance when they die.
The forms generally require two witnesses to sign the form at the time they are completed. If the forms are rendered unbinding, the trustee has full discretion over who gets the money.
Andrew Simpson, an estate lawyer at Maurice Blackburn, said the breaches could have serious ramifications for customers, given the forms are designed to speak on behalf of a person after they die.
"If that nomination falls over because it wasn't witnessed properly, then the trustee retains discretion as to who to give the money to," he said.
"The purpose of the nomination would be defeated."
It is the second misconduct issue inside NAB's wealth division relating to superannuation customers after it was revealed in February that it had overcharged members and knocked back insurance claims to seriously ill customers.
ASIC imposed extra licence conditions on NAB's super trustee in response to the breach, which has forced to pay $36.5 million in compensation to 220,000 customers.
Mr Steele says failure to witness documents correctly may be a breach of the bank's licence conditions but it was not clear whether it rendered the documents void.
Broken trust
The timing could not be worse for NAB, who like the other big banks are trying to win back trust with the community in a battle over the government's new $6.2 billion bank levy.
ANZ chairman David Gonski told shareholders on Thursday the tax was further evidence of a breakdown of trust between the banks, parliament and the community.
"Our aim is to work even harder to help repair the relationship for the good of shareholders and of all Australians," he said.
"We acknowledge that this will require us to think and act differently."
It is unclear whether the practice of false witnessing is occurring in other parts of the industry, the FSU could not say whether its members had faced similar problems.