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Commercial property lender Thinktank has announced that it has surpassed $2 billion in loan settlements, off the back of sustained demand for commercial finance and uptake from brokers.
The lender, which provides commercial mortgages (under $3 million in size) to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), revealed that it had surpassed $2 billion in loan settlements earlier this month, thanks to demand from borrowers such as self-managed super funds, as well as uptake of its new self-employed residential loan products, and support from the broker channel.
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Thinktank CEO Jonathan Street noted that the milestone was achieved more quickly than the first $1-billion milestone, which took more than four years to surpass – with the second billion settled in 22 months.
He added that, based on current projections, the $3-billion mark is expected to be reached in “early 2021”.
Commenting on the $2-billion settlement milestone, Mr Street said: “The achievement has come on the back of six successive years where loan growth has exceeded 30 per cent – which we believe is a product of continuing to maintain our core focus on support for the finance broker channel and working collaboratively with our relationship business partners in the aggregation space.
“It is also very encouraging to see the strong demand that has emerged for our range of self-employed residential loan products we introduced earlier this year that neatly complement our commercial product range that is sought, in the main, by business owners and SMEs who turn to brokers for financial assistance,” Mr Street said.
The Thinktank CEO revealed that the lender will look to improve broker lodgement capabilities in 2020, starting with the introduction of an “advanced online loan broker lodgement” system in the first quarter of the year.
This system, featuring LoanApp by Simpology, will reportedly be followed by the release of more “fully featured commercial and residential product functionality” as well as the implementation of comprehensive credit reporting.
“We have been investing extensively in our platform over the past 18 months as we progressively digitise the loan origination, underwriting and settlement processes. Over the next year, we will begin to increasingly see the positive impacts of this for brokers and their clients as well as our own team,” Mr Street said.
Over the year 2019, the lender has been on a growth drive, bringing on 31 more staff members – including Cath Ryan as regional sales executive for NSW and Heather Noonan as regional sales executive for Vic/Tas/SA – completing its fifth securitisation, for $350 million, last month (taking the company’s total bond issuance to date to $1.4 billion) and launching two new warehouse funding facilities with major domestic and global banks.
[Related: Connective partners with Thinktank to launch new loan suite]
