NAB boss Ross McEwan says the government will continue to provide support for “some industries that have been badly damaged”, rather than expose the whole of Australian business to the “September cliff”, when current support measures end.

Speaking at Bloomberg’s Invest Global online conference yesterday, McEwan said: “The government has done a good job of stimulating the economy. It can’t do that forever.

“I do think there’s a path to look after industries that have been very badly damaged that will take a lot longer. I would expect to see some of those industries with some form of support for a long period of time.

“There’ll be smaller programs that will supplement as we go through this and each one will have a very clear purpose and it will be ready to help industries move along until they can stand on their own two feet.”

Tourism and airlines were two sectors that he highlighted.

The NAB chief executive said the bank would also continue to provide support. He said the two key lessons from the financial crisis were to have strong bank balance sheets and to support customers.

“We’re making the assumption that those businesses that were strong going into this crisis, we should be supporting to be a good business coming out. If you had a struggling business going into this crisis, it is very unlikely you will survive.”

The Australian reports that APRA is in discussions arouns cushioning the impact of “cliff” by  extending capital relief, with banks accepting a longer period of loan deferrals.

McEwan also said he sees some opportunities for the bank arising from the crisis.

“Several trends are being accelerated. Use of cash is off. Use of ATMs is off and so is use of cheques.

“We expected these things to take many years but now we are bringing forward parts of our strategy that involve the use of technology for transactions.”