The bank also said it will retain its UK operations because its international businesses are proving resilient despite the difficult economic climate.
In a strategy update announced today, new NAB chief executive Cameron Clyne also flagged a restructure of its struggling nabCapital division.
"As part of maintaining conservative settings, and reflecting the increasingly challenging external environment, (the) dividend will be reduced by approximately 25 per cent for the 2009 half year,'' NAB said.
"The main business priorities are to develop NAB's Australian franchise by growing the business bank, leveraging recent investments in the retail bank and continuing to pursue opportunities across the wealth management value chain.
"The international businesses are proving to be resilient under difficult market conditions."
Analysts had expected the bank could announce job cuts and the sale of the UK operations.
Mr Clyne's global economic outlook was downbeat as he noted the world was moving into a recessionary cycle at a faster than anticipated speed.
"There is great uncertainty around the timing and speed of an eventual recovery,'' he added.
The move by governments and central banks around the world to prop up business and consumer confidence was unprecedented and it was not yet clear how the actions will pan out, particularly on the regulation front.
"Some industry trust has been lost,'' Mr Clyne said.
"We are potentially in for a long period of de-leveraging by households and companies.''
But Mr Clyne said NAB needed to be flexible in the face of a wide range of possible outcomes and its four main goals were to main a strong balance sheet, generate more synergies in its business, stand out in the market to attract more customers and focus on growing its Australian business.
"Australia has the benefit of timely Government and regulatory responses, and is relatively better positioned than many other markets,'' he added.
"We are also addressing our underweight position in the segment of customers with turnover less than $3 million per annum.
"Risk is being more appropriately priced and this will benefit our business, particularly given our strong relationship banking model.''
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