Give us something we can bank on

Of the many damning observations NAB’s contracted consultants at EY (formerly known as Ernst & Young) made about its banking client in draft documents a year ago, one is especially alarming: ‘‘The bank focuses only on addressing the issues through Band-Aid fixes rather than investing in long-term solutions.’’

Here we have EY staff expressing bewilderment and frustration, as though the consultants cannot believe how blase´ , lax, inattentive or, perhaps, incompetent NAB executives and directors seem to be on matters of fundamental importance.

But there are more comments in documents leaked to The Age’s Adele Ferguson that suggest NAB and its New Zealand subsidiary BNZ were not

even passably tackling issues that for years had been on the radar of regulators, enforcement agencies, consumers and, regards NAB, discussed at the Australian banking royal commission.

After Ferguson’s revelations, a parliamentary inquiry focusing on the auditing industry was called. A similar inquiry in Britain in 2018 considered a report into breaking up the big players and carving out auditing from consultancy services, to maintain integrity and reduce the risk of conflicts of interest.

We hope the inquiry here carefully examines the multi-layered relationships pursued by the so-called Big Four accounting firms in auditing and consultancy so that trust and transparency are given primary consideration.