Australia’s financial sector is currently sitting at the intersection of multiple once-in-a-generation macroeconomic trends. The country, like many of the world’s largest economies, is staring down the barrel of the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in human history. By 2050, an estimated $3.5 trillion in assets will change hands from one generation to the next, a massive paradigm shift for the country’s economy and social fabric. The next generation of high and ultra-high net worth individuals have new priorities, and new ways of doing things.
In particular, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations are playing an increasingly major role in investment decisions. Right now, 79% of investors factor ESG criteria into their choices. Globally, ESG-related investments amount to a staggering $34 trillion, and neither of these figures are going anywhere but up.
Realising an opportunity
“The macro trends affecting the market are significant, but it creates an opportunity to put our clients first and deliver real opportunities and meaningful interaction,” explains Michael Saadie, Executive General Manager, NAB Private Wealth. Saadie is confident that National Australia Bank (NAB) Private Wealth is ideally suited to support its customers during a uniquely complex time.
“Getting our own organisational structure right is also pivotal to ensuring we bring our best game to our clients and we are doing that thanks to a top-down reorganisation and digital transformation of NAB Private Wealth.”
Over the past two years, Saadie and his team have “created the most comprehensive wealth management offering among the major trading banks in the marketplace,” he explains.
“We’ve created the most comprehensive wealth management offering among the major trading banks in the marketplace.”
Michael Saadie, Executive General Manager, NAB Private Wealth
A new chapter for NAB Private Wealth
NAB Private Wealth in its current incarnation is a relatively recent creation. “Prior to 2020, our private banking and wealth management business was run on a regional basis,” explains Saadie.
A major strategic refresh starting in 2019 consolidated NAB’s private banking resources. Uniting all the private bankers across distribution channels, integrating JBWere, the country’s oldest advisory firm. It also combined NAB’s wealth products and platforms. This included nabtrade the bank’s self-directed wealth platform, and the private investment advisors within NAB’s institutional bank who distribute products to the bank’s client base.
Integrating the operations of multiple wealth management, advisory, and private banking businesses into a single operation is no small feat. The reorganisation has been complex and challenging in many ways. From managing a cultural shift in established workplaces to instilling new approaches to designing and delivering products to clients.
We sat down with Saadie and Mike Allen of NAB Private Wealth’s Executive Operations and Execution, to learn more about their vision for a comprehensive, integrated wealth management offering enabled by cutting edge technology and powered, at its heart, by people.
