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Staff unhappiness and movement is nothing new to what was always going to be a difficult marriage between a first world English bank with empire building ambitions and an Afrikaner-dominated, cloistered apartheid-era bank.

The personnel casualty list has grown since Steve Booysen left in 2009 and was replaced by Maria Ramos, a government technocrat. The biggest names to leave under a cloud were those of Jacques Schindehutte and Gavin Opperman, the former because he didn't get the deputy CEO role and the latter because his well-run retail division would be merged with the business banking division, with control effectively going to someone else.

An anonymous source said in 2009 that there was a lot of unhappiness in the Absa corridors downtown, largely due to previous roles being crimped back. The trend does not seem to have reversed as at the end of January three executive committee members resigned - Alfie Naidoo from ops, Daphne Motsepe - the Opperman departure was a precursor as her unsecured lending division was affected by that move too - and Happy Nthtshingila from communications. The fact that only one of them is retiring is telling.

In the past week the big fish, "King Louis" Von Zeuner joined this list and is going at the end of the year. Absa's exco is down to nine from 12 a year ago, and is the most inexperienced in the country. It is little wonder the share price lost over 1% on the news - it was trading up before the bombshell dropped.

Will the unhappiness continue to affect management going forward? The last thing shareholders will want is the likes of Dave Hodnett or Stephen van Coller to get itchy feet.

In an interview with BusinessLIVE on Friday Von Zeuner denied there was any bad blood with either Absa or Barclays.

"When I indicated I wanted to pursue a more non-executive role I was extremely fortunate to be asked for up to 60% of my time by both the Absa and Barclays boards," said Von Zeuner.

The request is for him to help develop talent, mentor management and focus on customers.

Von Zeuner worked his way up through the bottom ranks over 32 years. But he says demands on executives have changed and retaining skills is going to be one such challenge. He doesn't expect to see too many players building up a career via 32 years at just one bank.

"The game is getting extremely competitive with international banks and the extreme focus on governance and regulatory and it is extremely specialised in the areas of credit and risk management; and you have the changing demands of customers. We are operating in a changing environment, but there are great opportunities."

Von Zeuner has no concern the Absa board is too young. "It has a mix of experience and the ability to bring young talent through and I think that is possibly a good combination."

As far as operations go, Von Zeuner does expect greater moves to mobile banking - Absa saw growth if 28% there in the last year - but says there is still a bit of a "disconnect" with cellular providers, who are needed as partners in the process.

One of his major concerns is that growth in unsecured lending is excessive. He doesn't believe the nascent recovery or consumer's positions open this avenue, nor the fact that corporate reinvestment or job creation remains muted.

He doesn't believe SA is going to go down the road of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac when rolling out a billion rand guarantee mortgage fund and subsidies for people earning between 3,000 and 15,000 rand.

Before government can roll this plan out, it will need the buy-in from the banks that will have to dish out the loans, but Von Zeuner believes it will be worthwhile for banks to co-operate in helping uplift communities and improve the dignity of all people. Of course, these are the customers of tomorrow too.

Banks are meeting the department of human settlements later in the month to discuss this topic in more detail.