Jessica Darnbrough
Just days after ME Bank revealed plans to break into third party distribution the bank has today announced that it already has an agreement in place with one large brokerage firm.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Speaking to The Adviser yesterday, ME Bank’s executive manager brand, products and distribution Ian Hendey said a limited launch into the market was underway and ME Bank products would be available to brokers within the month. The bank would then look to build its distribution with select brokerage and aggregation groups next year.
“By Q1 or Q2 next year we hope to have built our presence out across the broker network and be working with a majority of the nation’s largest brokerage groups,” Mr Hendey said.
“We want to do a soft launch first through one brokerage group to help us understand the processes and iron out any bugs that may arise.”
Mr Hendey said the bank, which will distribute nationally through brokers, is hopeful that more than 40 per cent of its business can eventually be written through the third party distribution network.
“Our initial goal is to get our broker market share to its natural level. From there however, we see no reason why brokers can’t write more than 43 per cent of our business. We have been listening to our customers and we know that nearly 50 per cent want to source their home loan from a broker, which is why we have decided to enter this space,” he said.