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An Australian bank will broaden its third-party distribution footprint by launching one of its sub-brands into the broker market.
Teachers Mutual Bank, which entered the third-party channel in 2013, today announced that UniBank for the first time has opened its mortgage range to brokers across Australia. The bank aims to provide greater access to lending solutions for customers in the tertiary education sector and brokers will have access to over 4 million graduates Australia wide and their families.
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“The decision to enter a second division into the market was fairly easy given the strong home loan growth we’ve experienced in the last two years for Teachers Mutual Bank. In the past financial year alone we’ve had a 33 per cent increase in home loan settlements, and we anticipate a similar trend with UniBank,” said Mark Middleton, national manager — third party distribution at Teachers Mutual Bank.
“The move will also mean brokers will have the opportunity to significantly expand their potential customer-base and be able to provide them with tailored products unique in the financial sector, including our 100 per cent mortgage offsets on fixed and variable products.”
The mutual bank partners with 12 aggregators and over 2,000 accredited brokers across Australia, with National Mortgage Brokers (nMB) and Australian Finance Group (AFG) the most recent additions.
Mr Middleton said the mutual bank has plans to continue to increase its broker reach via its existing aggregator panel over the next few years.
“To support our intended broker network growth over the coming years we will invest in further resources and systems. Last year alone we increased our number of business development managers and introduced the NextGen.Net ApplyOnline service,” Mr Middleton said.
He added that based on current reporting he is delighted that their brokers are aligning so well with the bank’s service values.
“We’re also pleased with the service members are receiving from our brokers. As a member-owned bank we have a strong culture of great service and as a result we experience high rates of member satisfaction year-on-year,” said Mr Middleton.
UniBank offers a range of retail banking products to graduates from Australian universities along with employees in the tertiary education sector and families across Australia. They merged with Teachers Mutual Bank Limited in August 2015.
