Ann: Memorandum of Understanding with NAB Financial Planning, page-274

Wrong reading of it IMO. No "changes" are coming. Nothing official. No mention of a time period. No exclusivity attached to said time period. Ann. says ...

"...conduct a range of mock client Statement of Advice processes enabling NAB Financial Planning to assess Intiger’s paraplanning/advice creation capability, generate qualitative & quantitative learnings & explore the current competitive landscape."

These are "mock" trials - sort of trials you have before real trials - just for NAB to get a feel without anything binding. Like friendly war games between nations.

Maybe the expansion of the Sentry numbers in their trial acted as a catalyst, or at least NAB (watching from the sidelines) took a little more notice - as it is clear some revolution of this side of the business is necessary/inevitable. Cost savings must be found - technology the only hope.

Presumably today, a few within NAB have got their hackles up. But these banks are very large hierarchical organizations. Could be unions, internal paraplanners, sub-licensees relying on NAB - who knows. Phones have been running hot this morning I imagine seeking clarification.

A little googling and you can see that despite it being the 21st century companies really only have ;
1. Gentleman's agreements (just a handshake so pretty worthless);
2. MOU's or MOA's (Memorandum of Agreements); or
3. Binding contracts.

Nothing in between or largely else to work with - so point is the announcement this morning had to be framed under the heading MOU (no other option applicable), and they (Intiger) went IMO to pains to inform us of the softly-softly nature of the agreement just so NAB has the appropriate opportunity to see closer up how the IAM system works. How else can they ?

Did it escape anyone's attention here that the reference to "non-binding" was written under the heading "Timeframe". That says to me, this is as non-committal as a MOU can get, and still be an MOU.

Now I do think peeps got a head of themselves (a little) and saw this as an equivalent to the Sentry deal - but it clearly is not. Sentry and NAB might have a similar number of planners (approx. 400) but the comparisons end there - in terms of internal resource management, staff relations and politics. And no surprise there, NAB being one of the big four with constant media attention.

That said, similar planner numbers means similar SOA production nationwide, so Sentry is nonetheless a viable competitor to be watched. NAB is not stupid, cant let anyone gain an uncontestable advantage - that's just good business.

I agree with a few others - wording in an ann. like this can be widely interpreted, but at some point one of the big 4 has to break the ice here, so no avoiding a few toes stepped on.

Next week IMO this will all be white noise.