National Banking Corporation Closed a K200 Million Raise With an Acting CEO. Its Listing Slipped to 2028

National Banking Corporation told the market on 20 July 2026 that it had raised more than K200 million in new capital from investors in Papua New Guinea, with every share priced between K0.60 and K0.70. Adam Downie, the man running the bank when the raise closed, still carries the word “acting” in his title. The same July release set the bank’s stock market listing for the first quarter of 2028, five quarters later than the end-2026 target announced at the April 2025 launch.

Downie has been Acting Chief Executive Officer of National Banking Corporation Limited (NBCL) since January. NBC’s board endorsed him at a special meeting the week before its 15 January 2026 announcement, according to the bank. Business Advantage PNG had reported on 6 January that his predecessor, Paul Thornton, resigned on medical grounds.

The board was explicit that the arrangement was temporary. NBC said Downie would lead the bank on an interim basis while it ran a formal search for a permanent chief executive, and that the permanent appointee would be the one to take NBC to an initial public offering. Nine months later, NBC’s About page and its media releases through July still list him as Acting CEO. Exepreneur found no announcement of a permanent appointment.

Chairman Darrell Seeto set out what he wanted in the January release. His instruction was short: “turn strategy into action, drive performance across the organisation.”

A Port Moresby start

According to NBC’s announcement, Downie is an Australian citizen who completed his primary schooling in Port Moresby, has family ties to Papua New Guinea and understands Tok Pisin. NBC’s website says he holds a Bachelor of Business Information Systems from the University of South Australia.

The bank describes his career two ways. Its January release credits him with “more than two decades” of senior banking leadership. Its About page says “over fifteen years” of senior leadership. Both point to the same starting line: Westpac, which he joined in 2004, NBC says, working in a number of senior roles in Australia.

Westpac and the unbanked

He came back to Port Moresby in 2011 as head of retail banking for Westpac PNG, according to NBC.

By September 2012 he was talking about the customers his bank did not reach. The National reported that month that Westpac was starting an “in store banking” pilot, partnering with village trade stores so people could deposit, withdraw and transfer money without travelling to a town branch. “The bank hopes to double number of accounts with this pilot project,” Downie told the paper.

By February 2014, The National reported, Westpac PNG had 69 in-store outlets, at least one in every province, against 16 full branches. The first had opened at LT Trading in Tubusereia village, Central Province. Downie said in-store banking gave people “access to banking services at their doorsteps.”

Telecompaper, citing The National, reported in December 2014 that Westpac PNG had launched a mobile banking service that customers could reach on any handset by dialling *149#, with Downie quoted on the launch.

In 2015, NBC says, he became head of retail banking for Westpac Pacific, based in Sydney. Two years later the Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme named Westpac PNG a joint winner of its 2017 Reuben James Summerlin Innovation Award, for a Highlands Innovation Hub set up to “design, test and validate a commercially scalable model” for serving low-income customers. The programme’s release, dated 31 August 2017, says the award was received by “Mr Adam Downie,” then Westpac’s Regional Head of Retail. NBC’s About page goes further and credits his leadership with establishing the hub; the programme’s own release does not say who set it up.

Adam Downie at Kina and the ANZ handover

Downie moved to Kina Bank in 2018, according to NBC. Kina’s 2019 annual general meeting speech, delivered on 21 May that year, lists him as Acting Executive General Manager, Personal Banking. By September, The National was quoting him as the bank’s executive general manager for personal banking.

In 2019 Kina took over ANZ’s retail, commercial and SME banking in PNG. ANZ’s notice to customers set the transfer for 22 September 2019 and listed the branches and the full ATM network moving with it. Nearly three weeks earlier, Downie had been the Kina executive reassuring ANZ customers in The National. “All accounts will automatically migrate to Kina Bank on Sept 23,” he said. “Account numbers will remain the same.”

NBC’s January release says Downie “played a key role” in the acquisition. Its About page puts it more strongly, describing him as a member of the Joint Implementation Committee and claiming 100 per cent customer retention. Kina’s own published documents reviewed for this profile do not name him in the deal’s governance, and Exepreneur could not independently confirm the retention figure.

Launching new home loan rates in May 2020, including a three-year fixed rate of 5.47 per cent, he told The National that Kina aimed to “be disruptive in the market, raising the level of competition.”

NBC says he later served as Kina’s executive general manager for strategy execution and left in 2021.

Adam Downie and the microbank job

Downie’s next role was at People’s Micro Bank, a state-owned microfinance lender. The Prime Minister’s office has described it as established in 2013 to serve small income earners, and the government’s information office says it is a subsidiary of the National Development Bank. A 2022 Cabinet decision set its conversion to a commercial bank in motion, according to the government’s information office.

NBC’s January release says Downie joined in 2022 as chief transformation officer and led the transition, and that the bank won its commercial banking licence in December 2024 “under his leadership.” Kumul Consolidated Holdings managing director Professor David Kavanamur confirmed the December licence, The National reported. NBC’s About page gives a different start date, saying Downie was appointed in June 2023. NBC’s two pages do not reconcile the dates.

Prime Minister James Marape launched the new National Banking Corporation on the evening of Thursday, 10 April 2025, at APEC Haus in Port Moresby, according to the government’s information office. Its arrival took the number of commercial banks in PNG to seven. The National reported Thornton as chief executive at the launch.

At the launch, Marape said the bank would serve the “80 percent of our people who remain on the fringes of our economy,” the information office reported, and urged it to “open branches in all 21 provinces including the Special Region of Bougainville within the next five years.” He also told NBC and its state owners not to “repeat the mistakes of the former PNG Banking Corporation.”

The Prime Minister’s office said a week later that Marape wanted 80 per cent of NBC owned by Papua New Guineans, with the State keeping 20 per cent through Kumul Consolidated Holdings.

Selling down the State

At launch, the State owned all of NBC: the National Development Bank held 60 per cent and Kumul Consolidated Holdings 40 per cent, Business Advantage PNG reported in April 2025. The same report said the Bank of PNG had made a sell-down a condition, requiring State ownership to fall below 20 per cent by the IPO.

Thornton told The National on 30 September 2025 that the bank was “offering at 60 toea per share” and had “raised K100 million so far,” and that “No single shareholder should have more than 15 per cent in NBC.” He put the government’s remaining stake at 52 per cent. State Enterprises Minister William Duma, defending the board’s strategy in The National a day earlier, said investors “now own 48 per cent of the bank” and dismissed Opposition criticism as “simply sour grapes.”

On Thornton’s figures, the State’s holding went from 100 per cent at the April launch to 52 per cent by the end of September, a fall of 48 percentage points in under six months.

Thornton told Business Advantage PNG in December 2025 that a second phase would raise about another K100 million and take government ownership to around 35 to 38 per cent.

The raise closed on Downie’s watch. NBCL announced on 20 July 2026 that it had secured “more than K200 million in new capital,” and Seeto said demand at K0.70 a share “exceeded the Board’s expectations.” NBC did not say whether the K200 million figure covers both phases or the second phase alone, and it has not published the State’s stake after the raise.

The bank he inherited

The most recent operating figures come from Thornton’s December 2025 interview with Business Advantage PNG. He said NBC had more than 100,000 accounts and about 260 staff, and ran eight regional branches plus two in Port Moresby. His targets were more than 30 branches within two to three years and a million customers by 2030. “PNG is still considerably under-banked,” he said.

Ten branches against a target of more than 30 means tripling the network in two to three years. Marape’s own ask, branches in all 21 provinces within five years, is more than double the current count.

The National reported at the April 2025 launch that BSP Financial Group holds 60 to 70 per cent of PNG’s banking market.

In September 2025, The National reported that the National Executive Council had instructed departments and state-owned enterprises to transfer accounts from commercial banks to NBC. BSP warned that the effect on its net profit after tax “is likely to be material” if the decision were fully carried out. Thornton said NBC could not absorb all of it. “We can take small amounts of government funds, but we can’t take all,” he told The National, citing “our capital constraints.”

NBC has not published financial statements. In the July release, Seeto described NBCL as “already profitable in only its 2nd year as a commercial bank,” without giving figures.

Nine months in the chair

In March, the bank reported that it had installed 10 new ATMs in six of its 10 branches as of 6 March 2026: Vision City, Boroko, Madang, Kimbe, Lae and Mount Hagen. Power problems kept the Kimbe machine from full operation. Downie said the machines would give customers “greater control over their everyday banking while reducing the need to queue in branches.”

In June, NBC named Angela Clark Sen as head of corporate banking and David Kulu, formerly of Telikom, as company secretary. Downie said the pair would support the bank “as we continue to translate our strategic vision into action and progress toward key milestones, including our pathway to an Initial Public Offering.”

In July, NBC added foreign exchange to its online banking, letting personal customers buy and sell currency and make overseas payments without visiting a branch. Downie said the service “puts us on par with the other established banks specific to this functionality.” NBC says enterprise customers are next.

Every public statement from Downie as acting chief executive that Exepreneur found came through an NBC media release. No interview or speech by him in the role was located on EMTV, Loop PNG, Business Advantage PNG or in The National.

A listing date that keeps moving

The IPO target has moved later across 15 months of public statements:

From the end-2026 target set at launch to the first quarter of 2028 is a five-quarter slip. The July release said NBCL “remains on track” for early 2028 and did not mention that the board’s January target had been the final quarter of 2027.

The board’s January plan was for a permanent chief executive to lead that listing. Downie, whom NBC credits with converting the microbank and who has run the bank through its capital raise, holds the job until the board names someone. NBC has not said whether he is a candidate.

In September 2012, explaining why Westpac was putting banking counters into village trade stores, Downie told The National that “Westpac’s role in the Pacific is more than just providing banking and financial services.” Fourteen years later, he is running the bank Marape launched for the “80 percent” on the fringes of the economy, with a listing now set for the first quarter of 2028.

Exepreneur emailed questions about this profile to National Banking Corporation on 28 October 2026, offering the bank and Adam Downie a right of reply. On 30 October Exepreneur wrote again to correct the response deadline to midday that day. NBC had not responded at the time of publication.