News: National Australia Bank unveils new structure to focus at home

National Australia Bank (NAB), the country's No.1 lender, said on Friday it has simplified its organisation structure to help increase its focus on the domestic market after hiving off its troubled British operations earlier this year.

The changes come nearly two years after CEO Andrew Thorburn took the helm at NAB and made exiting the UK a priority after the bank underperformed its three major peers on earnings growth and shareholder returns.

"The time was right to refresh the executive leadership team after two years during which the team had worked to address major legacy issues and re-focus the bank on the core Australian and New Zealand business," Thorburn said in a statement.

"This new organisation structure will enable us to continue the pace of change while providing greater clarity for our customers and our people."

Among the changes announced on Friday, the bank will create three main customer facing divisions - one for small businesses, a second for large corporates and international branches and the third for retail banking and wealth.

It also created a 'customer products & services' division that will include product strategy, digital banking and marketing. The bank's New Zealand unit remains largely unchanged.

The heads of each of these divisions will report directly to Thorburn.

NAB is not alone in reshaping its business to make it more efficient. No.4 lender Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) announced a management shake-up in January, while No.3 Westpac Banking Corp (WBC) last year split its profitable retail and business banking division in an organisation reshuffle.

The moves come at a time when Australia's highly profitable "Big Four" banks - NAB, ANZ, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank (CBA) - are preparing for a new era of slowing growth and rising loan losses.