Adds details on chair and NAB, paragraphs 4-10

By Scott Murdoch

SYDNEY, Dec 12 (Reuters) - National Australia Bank NAB.AX Chair Philip Chronican said on Friday the bank would begin succession planning for his replacement after he was reelected to the board for a fourth and final term.

Chronican was reelected with support of about 98% of proxy votes shown at the bank's annual meeting in Melbourne on Friday.

The official results will be published later on Friday. NAB is Australia's third-largest lender by market capitalisation and its share price is up 12.3% this year. The S&P/ASX200 financials index .AXFJ is up 5.5% in that time.

Chronican told shareholders the board had begun planning for his eventual departure, with director Kathryn Fagg and the board's nomination and governance committee overseeing the process.

Chronican has been on the board for about nine years, meaning his term would be about 12 years when he retires, in line with what is typical for Australian bank boards.

"The leadership group has been through successive changes and a new generation of leadership is coming through to take the bank confidently into the future," Chronican told the meeting.

"No large organisation is perfect, we remain alert for issues that are likely to hold us back or where we fall short of the community's and our customers' expectations."

NAB appointed Andrew Irvine as chief executive in April last year and banks typically do not replace chief executives and chairs within at least two years of each other.

Chronican was previously a senior ANZ Group ANZ.AX banker before joining the NAB board after he retired from the rival lender.

He was acting CEO of NAB in 2019 after the bank's former chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, and chair Ken Henry resigned after NAB faced severe criticism during a Royal Commission hearing on Australia's financial services sector.

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Roshan Thomas in BengaluruEditing by Maju Samuel and Matthew Lewis)

((Roshan.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com;))