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A big four bank has said that it’s “absolutely” committed to the broker channel, stating that “customers are choosing mortgage brokers despite industry ‘turmoil’”.
Speaking to The Adviser, NAB’s executive general manager of broker partnerships, Anthony Waldron, said that despite industry “turmoil”, customers have continued to choose mortgage brokers, adding that NAB “wants to be where the customers are”.
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“We are committed to the broker channel,” Mr Waldron said. “We see that customers choose brokers for a reason, and they do that around the proposition that brokers drive competition.
“We want to be where the customers are, so we absolutely are committed to the broker channel and we will continue to see a lot of the growth within NAB coming through the broker channel.”
NAB’s full-year 2018 (FY18) financial results revealed that the number of home loans originated through the broker network increased from 33.7 per cent to 35.5 per cent.
The FY18 results also revealed that brokers and NAB-owned wholesale lender Advantedge originated $9 billion in home loans over the year, with the third-party channel contributing $107.5 billion to the bank’s total loan book.
Mr Waldron added that NAB is continuing to invest in its aggregator networks of PLAN, Choice and FAST, and it said that the bank plans to further invest in its broker CRM platform, Podium, and would be announcing “significant changes” to the platform in the coming months.
The NAB executive also said that the bank has sought to ensure that its recent remuneration changes, implemented as part of the Combined Industry Forum’s recommendations, were communicated effectively to the broker network.
Mr Waldron, who also serves as chairman of the CIF, made reference to the “customer first duty” recommended by the industry group, stating that it would formalise what brokers are already doing.
“I think 99.9 per cent of the time [brokers are] already meeting the customer first duty from a CIF perspective, so it’s just continuing to do that and continuing to make sure that they put the interests of the customer ahead of their own,” the EGM added.
Mr Waldron concluded: “I think one of the things that we’ve got to focus on as an industry is that customers are choosing brokers for a reason.
“Through all of the changes, announcements and turmoil that we’ve seen in the industry, more and more customers have still continued to use brokers.”
