National Australia Bank will have the mechanisms in place to provide its merchant customers in Australia with same-day settlement some time during the next year. The bank will be the last of its peer group to reach this milestone.Another technology milestone that NAB hopes to reach in the next year is the transfer the bulk of its Australian retail customer base to the new banking platform on which the bank has laboured for more than three years.Cameron Clyne, NAB's CEO, told the investor briefing yesterday that the platform would extend functionality, cater to greater self-service and provide real-time banking (at least for NAB customers paying other NAB customers).As with the rest of the industry, real-time payment is waiting for the banks to process batch payments more frequently than at the end of day, though even this is likely to occur some time in 2014.NAB is also investing in an upgraded share-trading platform. Clyne said this will be fully integrated into internet banking and provide more research on ASX-listed companies than is available from other banks.