The National Australia Bank (ASX: NAB) will spent “the next few days” deciding on how to continue competition after its failed bid for financial management rival Axa Asia Pacific Holdings Limited (ASX: AXA).

NAB head of wealth management Steve Tucker said, “We come from a great position (and) we'll just continue to go on and compete.”

On Thursday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) rejected NAB's revamped bid which involved selling AXA's investment platform North to IOOF for $5 million. The banks's first bid in April received the same basis for rejection. Competition watchdog ACCC thrashed the original proposal citing the likelihood of less competition in the fast-growing platform sector.

Tucker said, “We've worked hard with them over the last few months to come up with a package that we thought would satisfy their concerns... You have to be careful to get the balance between satisfying the concerns of the ACCC and keeping the integrity of the value of the deal in place.”

The bank manager added, “We thought we had done that with a good package (and) we were disappointed to get the 'no' decision.”

NAB could challenge the ACCC's decision in court or give up on the offer.

Constellation Capital Management analyst Peter Vann advised a walk away for the reason that the bank “had nine months since they put their bid in and it's still not settled... It will be difficult for them to sacrifice more to reduce distribution concentration and so you have to wonder about the whole deal.”