No longer ‘National’, they’re now just ‘nab’. I’ve never actually heard anyone call the bank ‘nab’, but I’m told this change reflects common usage among National, sorry, nab employees and customers. I guess I don’t talk to enough people about banking.
I find it bewildering that a bank would choose to identify themselves with a word meaning, ‘to take or grab suddenly’ and ‘to catch and arrest a criminal’. I mean, their candour is refreshing, but none the less surprising. Even more surprising when you consider this quote from an article in The Age:
“The bank's rebranding has been characterised by marketing experts and banking analysts as an attempt to assert a new identity after it discovered rogue traders on its foreign exchange desk had lost $360 million through shonky accounting.”
Let’s refocus, people. Let’s leave the past in the past. Let’s put a new face on things and boldly move forward towards a prosperous future, and let’s do it under a name that means to take, to grab, and to arrest a criminal.
That really is a bold move! I don’t know. Maybe people won’t be affected by any alternate meanings, maybe I’ll be the only person who double-takes at ‘nab’, maybe the National will be revitalized and business will boom, and if so, well, good luck to them. Many happy banking returns.
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As a customer of the bank formerly known as National, I personally never called it "nab", usually referring to it by its full name.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the ASX code for the bank has always been "NAB", and it is common practice - especially among employees and in the financial sector - to refer to a company by its ASX code. Certainly, Sky News Australia financial analysts have been calling the company "nab" for as long as I can remember.
Me, I always called it "En-Ay-Bee", because "NAB" is unusual among ASX codes in being a pronouncable word, so my lazy brain just spells it out as it would any other.
Ah ha, lazy minds think alike. Your commentis the conceptually the same as my comment about AWB :)
ReplyDeletePersonally, I have always called it the NAB (pronouced as one word). May have something to do with both parents working in the banking sector for a competitor.
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