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ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott has explained the significance of the third-party channel to the group's home lending business, noting that brokers provide far bigger mortgages than its proprietary channels.
Mr Elliott says one of the main reasons the third-party channel continues to be a focus for the bank is because its customers choose to use brokers.
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“Our customer base in Australia feel brokers are a good way to look at the market overall and make the best decision, so there is demand for it,” Mr Elliott told The Adviser.
“Secondly, for ANZ what we find is that brokers are a terrific way to acquire new customers. Somebody who is not already an existing customer of ANZ is unlikely just to wander into a branch or call up the call centre and ask about a mortgage. But they do talk to brokers.”
Mr Elliott said the broker channel typically delivers larger mortgages for ANZ.
“If I’m going to get a mortgage for $1 million, I’m much more likely to want to get that validated by price shopping, looking at terms and conditions and validating my decision through a broker,” he said.
“If it’s a smaller $200,000 mortgage, I may be less inclined to do so. So it tends to skew to a higher value as well, which is not a bad thing from the bank’s perspective, as long as it is not too large.”
The ANZ chief said the bank understands the importance of turnaround times for brokers.
“Brokers really want a bank that can respond quickly. They want to help their customer get into their house,” Mr Elliott said. “So they need a response quickly and one they can rely on. We have worked really hard at speed and turnaround. We are a very competitive bank from a broker point of view.”
Mr Elliott said the bank has made an effort to be clear with the brokers about its risk appetite.
“We are really open and give them a full understanding of what loans we want to do,” he said.
“They are a variable cost channel for us. We are not having to put more and more people out there to find the loans. If the market slows down or grows quickly, we can move with the market by using brokers.”
ANZ recently revealed that its head of the third-party channel, Keiran Evans, had stepped down. Simone Tilley will now lead ANZ’s broker business as head of retail broker distribution.
[Related: ANZ closing branches with firm eye on broker channel]
