Now we may have another example – NAB's Thorburn would rather not call the sale of a product “selling”.

Hodge: “And when it comes to the idea of selling, from NAB's perspective if a customer is sold a product that is useful to them and that - the customer can afford, and that is within the risk appetite of NAB, then that's in the long-term interests of NAB?”

Thorburn: “Yes, it is, although I'm just - I'm just reacting to even the selling notion. I - you know - anyway. So I'm agreeing with you."

Hodge: "I just don't have another verb other than sell that I can offer you, Mr Thorburn, I'm sorry.”

Thorburn: “Right. Okay. I will think of one.”

He says banker pay moved in this way because banks became to focused on growth, deregulation of the financial sector, and global competition for talent.

Thorburn is defending some amount of “variable” pay, but says it should be more “balanced” to encourage better behaviour.

“But it should be much more balanced and much more long term, and I think those sort of things are - are important. And it is important that people in a year who over-achieve can have the chance to earn more than others who, you know, have a solid year or perhaps less of a year,” Thorburn says.

One example of a failed incentive scheme was the “introducer” program, where people, including gym owners or hairdressers, could pocket commissions for recommending home loan customers.

Thorburn says the introducer scheme was an example of the bank ”putting the bait right there for people”, and people “stepped over the line”.

It led to a zinger from senior counsel assisting Michael Hodge QC.

Hodge: "The first was you made the point about having a vision and a purpose. I think I might confuse them. A vision should be for 50 years?"

Thorburn: "Other way around."

Hodge: "Purpose should be for 50 years, vision should be for five years?"

Thorburn: "Yes."

Hodge: "Presumably, whatever those terms mean in any particular way, that's not a change for the bank. The bank must have always had a vision and a purpose?"

Thorburn: "Well, in the last two years, the purpose and vision have been - we never had a purpose. And our chairman and myself led that work inside the company to work out what is our purpose. And I think it was very thorough and very disciplined. We went back and looked at a lot of artefacts and there have been books written about the bank and where we existed. So we've got - the purpose was new. It was approved two years ago. The vision was renewed this year."

Hodge: "All right. It seems - it sounds so complicated when you say it, but you're a bank. Presumably, your purpose is to be a bank. Is it?" [This question was followed by quite a bit of laughter from Hodge and the gallery.]

Thorburn: "Yes."

Later, Hodge says: “It seems like as a bank your purpose would be to take deposits and lend money and to do that as well as you could.”

Thorburn agrees this is “the functional activities of a bank” but all banks do this, and NAB needs to describe something more detailed for its staff.

Asked whether NAB had invested enough in its necessary systems and processes, Thorburn says investment has been “reasonable” but too much money was put into fixing businesses, including its troubled UK arm, which it spun off.

Thorburn is being examined by senior counsel assisting Michael Hodge QC on the topic.

Hodge: "What I wonder is whether somebody listening to the points that you're making might think that what you're advocating for is a shift toward, or some would probably say back to, a more service-oriented and utilitarian view of banking?"

Thorburn: "Well, I think definitely a shift back to - I mean, we can't go back - we've got to go back in some ways but we can't because the world has changed so fast and there's so many different technologies now and competitors.

"So I'm not harking to the past for, you know, anything other than getting the basics right about it should be service-based. It should be relationship-based. It should be stewardship based. It should not be sales based."

Livingstone endured a torrid appearance before the royal commission last week following a string of damaging revelations at the inquiry and in the media.

While the next Australia Day awards will be announced in just nine weeks and CBA has long been locked in as the major partner, Labor wants organisers to conduct an urgent review of the partnership.

After more than 60 days of gruelling public hearings for banks and other financial services businesses, the commission's final week of hearings will focus on leaders of NAB, followed by AMP, ANZ Bank, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

Mr Thorburn will be the first witness called on Monday, and the commission is expected to grill him over the bank's fees for no service scandal, in which it took fees for advice that was never provided.

As well as exposing major delays in the payment of compensation, the commission has questioned if NAB limited how much it told the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) about its compensation bill, so as to appear in the "middle of the pack" compared with other banks.

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