National Australia Bank chief steps down
The chief executive of National Australia Bank (NAB) has stepped down in the wake of the recent shock currency trading losses.
Frank Cicutto bowed to calls for his departure and was replaced by Scotsman John Stewart, aged 54, a former Barclays deputy chief executive who had been with National Australia for less than six months.
Stewart, is the bank's first non-Australian boss.
The bank, which owns NIB in Ireland, shocked the market two weeks ago when it suspended four dealers over unauthorised trading in foreign currency options dating back to October and last week pegged the losses at A$360m (€219m).
NAB said the traders - three in Melbourne and one in London - made 'fictitious' trades to conceal losses after unsuccessfully betting that the Australian and New Zealand currencies would fall against the US dollar.
Their actions were detected by a colleague, raising doubts about the bank's risk management systems.
The unauthorised trading scandal followed $2.2bn (€1.77bn) in write downs on the bank's former U.S
HomeSide mortgage servicing arm in 2001 and a botched raid on the shares of AMP last year.
