NAB chief executive Ross McEwan is keen to revive two parts of the business that he feels have been neglected – NAB Private and UBank.

Following the announcement of the sale of MLC Wealth to IOOF in August, the bank said it has no major changes planned for its portfolio of businesses.

Now McEwan wants to be smarter with the bank’s investment spend, targeting segments where he believes it can achieve growth while maintaining pricing and risk disciplines.

McEwan told investors at a results briefing yesterday: “We used to be the best private bank in Australia but when I arrived here you could barely find it.

“We are growing it again. We have put on 35 to 40 bankers.”

With its strong share of business banking, NAB Private is available to provide tailored relationship banking and investment services for business owners and managers.

McEwan said there is plenty of scope to do more business at that end of the market.

At the other end, he wants the bank to attract more young customers and sees UBank as the vehicle to do that.

“We have not invested all that well into it in the past five years. It has 600,000 customers and attracts the youth market,” McEwan said.

“We think it is worth investing in the brand. Open banking will allow us to use data to put better propositions to these customers.”

UBank targets digitally active customers and has had strong take-up of a personal financial management tool Free2Spend over the past year.

The bank’s outlook is for more revenue pressure from low interest rates, low loan growth and intense competition for mortgages. Like other banks, NAB has had difficulty reining in costs because of all the investment required to meet regulatory requirements.

McEwan said the big non-discretionary spending items will start to taper off after 2022, giving the bank more scope for projects that will enhance growth, especially digitisation.

However, he wants investment projects to be more targeted and has been critical of the bank’s approach to spending in the past.