The head of National Australia Bank has admitted no senior executives were sacked after more than 40 financial planners were fired for providing dodgy advice to customers.
Andrew Thorburn admitted to a parliamentary committee one customer given the wrong advice was one too many, but the bank managed about 1700 planners and the vast majority do the right thing.
Asked how many senior executives had their jobs terminated as a result, Mr Thorburn, a life-long banker, said: "I don't think there's any".
"Because we concluded that this was not systemic, that it was individuals that weren't abiding by the rules of the land and our company, that there didn't need to be more severe penalties," he told MPs conducting a review of the four big banks in Canberra on Thursday.
There was some "monetary consequences", but Mr Thorburn didn't think there was a need for terminations.
Customers have been compensated and two third-party groups have conducted thorough reviews of their systems.
"We have learnt from this," he said, noting how the bank's reputation has suffered.
"We have people here, the planners who have left, who were either seriously breaching our own compliance standards or blatantly breaking the law.
"Now we have to put in place better systems to detect that, better training, better leadership but as long as banking's been in existence - and in other professions too - there is going to be some people that are not going to play by the rules."
Committee chairman David Coleman said he wouldn't say having one-in-40 planners being fired was a "black swan" event.
It was convenient for the bank to say there were 43 rogue individuals, he said.
