![CBA boss Ian Narev. Six years into the job, will he take the chair of the Bankers' Association?](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705144321/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/u/s/7/i/m/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gx58a3.png/1499253540700.jpg)
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705144321im_/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/1/4/4/7/2/c/image.imgtype.afrAuthorAvatar.120x120.png/1426319499911.png)
What a year it's been for the Australian Bankers' Association. Indeed what a few years! During Gail Kelly's chairmanship, the peak body ran dead while APRA boss Wayne Byres convinced Financial System Inquiry chair David Murray recommend the banks be required to hold more (dead) capital against their loan books. That was a $40 billion snafu.
Kelly and her successor Brian Hartzer handed the ABA chair to National Australia Bank's boss Andrew Thorburn and his group head of corporate affairs Ken Henry. That's resulted in the appointment of former Queensland premier Anna Bligh as ABA chief and another partisan tantrum from Treasurer Scott Morrison after his media adviser Sasha Grebe didn't get the job. ScoMo's revenge (or so it was portrayed) was mugging the banks in May with the $6.2 billion bank levy, only to be aped by mendicant South Australia's Jay Weatherill and Tom Koutsantonis.
NAB's two-year turn ends in November when Thorburn is supposed to hand over to Commonwealth Bank CEO Ian Narev. But will he? Narev, of course, is reaching the end of his time at the helm of Australia's most valuable company (by both market cap and profitability). In November, it will be a full six years since he replaced another Kiwi, Ralph Norris.
As well, Narev is a director of the Business Council of Australia, and chair of its economic policy group. When Grant King (AKA Admiral Ackbar) is done with the presidency, you'd have to think either Narev or Qantas' Alan Joyce (also on the BCA board) would be superb in the (thankless) role.
![The big four CEOs: Ian Narev, CBA; Shayne Elliott, ANZ; Brian Hartzer, Westpac; and Andrew Thorburn, NAB.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705144321/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/v/b/r/e/9/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1495149567123.jpg)
The variables here are myriad: will Matt Comyn succeed Narev and will a rookie CEO prefer to cede the ancillary gig to a more settled peer like, say ANZ Banking Group's Shayne Elliott, and take the rotation come 2019? Or to ABA's deputy president, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank CEO Mike Hirst? But then the regionals aren't entitled to the big seat, and Hirst might not be around much longer either.
Anyway, we've managed to shoehorn the ABA, the CBA and the BCA into the same yarn. You wouldn't want to be dyslexic.