NAB Signs Enforceable Undertaking, to Pay $127M to Workers
National Australia Bank has signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman to complete $127 million in back payments to 65,999 underpaid workers, including $34 million in interest and $8 million in superannuation, plus a record $2 million contrition payment.
National Australia Bank (NAB) has signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman, committing to complete payments of $127 million to 65,999 underpaid workers. The sum includes $34 million in interest and $8 million in superannuation, Australia's compulsory retirement savings.
An enforceable undertaking is a legally binding agreement in which an employer promises to fix a breach and meet set conditions, rather than face court action.
Record contrition payment
NAB will also pay $2 million to the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund as a contrition payment. The Fair Work Ombudsman said it is the largest such payment included in an enforceable undertaking the regulator has executed.
Individual back payments range from less than $5 to more than $87,000, including superannuation and interest. The average is around $1,934, according to the ombudsman.
How the underpayments happened
NAB reported the problem itself in late 2019, after it found significant errors in how it applied its enterprise agreement. A broad review followed and identified non-compliance going back to 2012.
In 2024, while implementing a new enterprise agreement, the bank found it had not adequately fixed those issues. Staff kept being underpaid until 2026.
The causes included weak governance processes, compliance oversights, inaccurate legacy payroll technology and poor record-keeping. As a result, eligible employees missed out on correct pay, superannuation, leave, allowances, overtime, redundancy, termination and public holiday entitlements. Casual, part-time and full-time staff were all affected, in every state and territory.
What each side said
Sarah White, NAB Group's Executive of People & Culture, said the bank sincerely apologised for the "unintended errors". She said NAB takes its payroll obligations "extremely seriously" and will keep remediating anyone affected.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said an enforceable undertaking was appropriate because NAB cooperated with the investigation. She still called it "particularly disappointing" to see such long-running underpayments from a well-resourced employer.
Booth said the bank negotiated its own enterprise agreement terms but failed to ensure compliant payroll systems were in place before those terms took effect. She welcomed NAB's reviews over many years and said the undertaking covers timeframes well outside statutory limits.
Over the past five years, the Fair Work Ombudsman has helped recover more than $1.2 billion for workers from large corporations.
