With its deputy CEO skipping off for London and persistent talk that one or more of the bank's CEO or Chief Customer Officer or chair may soon be a goner, NAB has made its defence to the banking royal commission, pleading only a narrow culpability in its submissions on fifth round hearings on superannuation, published yesterday.Neil Young, a former federal court judge and lead advocate in iconic litigation on payments is primary author for NAB in this defence, one framed in part on "a number of material errors and inaccuracies" in the closing submissions from counsel assisting.Contrite, NAB open their submission to the commissioner, Kenneth Hayne, by asking the commission "to recognise the context in which the [fees] were applied, and the steps taken by NAB and NULIS (the bank-owned trustee) to remediate errors once they were identified."There is history for Hayne to consider."As to the introduction of [the fees], the intention was to make the fees payable by members more transparent and easier to understand," the bank explains.NAB was a market-leader in this respect, or so they say. However, NAB and NULIS said they "recognise that, despite the best of intentions, the application of the new fees had flaws."As to remediation, NAB said that "each event has been investigated, reported to the relevant regulator and has been (or will be) remediated. While Ms Smith and Mr Carter (both senior wealth executives) acknowledged that remediation has taken too long, the desire of NAB and NULIS to remediate cannot be ignored," the bank insisted."This has included, where appropriate, an external assessment of the remediation conducted. In every case, remediation has been designed with the aim of ensuring that members and customers have not been adversely impacted by the errors and that NAB will not profit at members' expense."Among others who may also soon no longer profit from NAB are its directors and C-suite team.The tenure of NAB managing director Andrew Thorburn looks increasingly like it has ended, or in short time will. He will be the second BNZ import in a row to disappoint as chief of The National Bank (as the old money still name the ban, on Melbourne talk-back radio station 3AW).For now, Thorburn is co-author of this plea to Hayne."The evidence demonstrates a commitment to surfacing issues, acknowledging where errors have been made, and fixing mistakes for customers, in accordance with NAB's core values. "These steps are consistent with the fact that NAB's wealth business has been on a journey of continuous improvement over a number of years."Two aims of this journey, the bank said were "to uplift its standards and to bring about a cultural shift from an 'adviser-centric' to a 'customer-centric' culture."NAB pointed to a report from Deloitte on the group's Quality Advice Framework Report.Dated November 2017, "Deloitte indicated that culturally, NAB exhibited a commendable culture of accountability and ownership for greater customer centricity and the overall success of the business".NAB Wealth's Independent Customer Advocate, the bank added, "has also similarly recognised progress in attitudes and