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Following the announcement of its new white-label offering with Macquarie Bank, AFG has clarified what it will mean for brokers and their clients – particularly first home buyers.
AFG formally introduced AFG Home Loans Icon last week, adding to the group’s existing white-label offering.
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It comes after AFG Home Loans’ Edge product recorded more than $460 million in settlements for the 2015 financial year – more than double what was originally forecast.
AFG Home Loans general manager Chris Slater said the introduction of the Icon product range will help meet white-label demand.
“We really see it as complimenting the existing range we’ve got. We don’t see it as a competition between the two [products]. It’s actually enabling us to get out and provide better solutions for all of our brokers across our network,” he told The Adviser.
Icon will complement AFG’s existing product range with features such as a family guarantee offering, a global limit facility and an SMSF product.
Mr Slater said the group’s family guarantee offering will deliver a solution specifically catering to brokers’ first home buyer clients.
“It’s really about helping first homeowners get into the market; so it’s mum and dad being able to help their son or their daughter or both get into their first home by helping them out with an equity position,” he said.
“It’s just something we haven’t been able to offer [previously], so Icon is going to help us with that need.”
Mr Slater said Icon’s global limit facility feature will primarily target financial planners, ensuring all needs are met across its membership base.
“AFG has got a pretty diverse membership base and a big chunk of our members are financial planners who obviously like to work with their clients that have differing investment needs,” he said.
“The global limit is just a product that allows financial planners to work more effectively with their investor clients to help them grow and build their portfolio.”
Mr Slater noted that despite the current uncertainty surrounding SMSF lending, Icon’s SMSF product will assist “brokers of ours that are specialised in dealing with SMSF and helping those clients”.
“It’s not something we’re sitting back on going ‘wow, we’re going to get a whole lot of volume off this’. It’s more about complementing our product suite.”
Mr Slater noted the launch of this new white-label offering with Macquarie Bank has been a “natural fit”
“We’ve always had strong ties with Macquarie and it’s no secret that Macquarie is beefing up their white-label program right across the industry, so it just seemed a natural fit for us with the product suite,” he said.
[Related: AFG grows lending options for brokers]
