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Mortgage Street is set to relaunch into market as a new non-bank lender operating via the broker channel.
Mortgage Street, a home loan company which was acquired by mortgage management company Mortgage House in 2008, is set to relaunch as a non-bank lender servicing the broker channel later this year.
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The lender, funded by Mortgage House, will enable brokers with their own Australian Credit Licences (ACLs) to accredit directly and access the lender’s home loan products, which will be “fully digital”.
Speaking to The Adviser, Mortgage House founder and chief executive officer, Ken Sayer, revealed that the idea to launch the new player into market came off the back of broker feedback.
Mr Sayer said: “Brokers are telling us that customers are extremely rate conscious now, because every second word is ‘rate’ [at the moment]. So, we’re going to give brokers what they’ve been asking for – a fast lender that has a sharp rate and there’s no channel conflict. As it’s brokers [that will be] dealing direct with Mortgage Street, and Mortgage Street will be the funder, there’s no middleman and they get the benefit of straight-through processing... there’s not a third mouth to feed in the food chain.
“It [will be] a very sharply priced lender dealing exclusively through brokers.”
He told The Adviser that he expected the fintech lender would be live by the new financial year (1 July 2021), and would initially launch with a prime, owner-occupied mortgage for purchase and refinance (80 per cent loan-to-value ratio [LVR] and under) before moving to a broader range of loan products.
Mr Sayer suggested that loans would start from the low 2 per cent mark for customers with “clean credit and a low LVR”.
“Essentially, Mortgage Street will be a direct competitor to the online neobanks,” he said.
Mortgage House re-entered the broker space in 2019, following a 10-year hiatus.
Its move to directly partner with brokers follows a similar move by neolender WLTH, which launched into market earlier this year.
The Brisbane-based digital lending and payments provider, WLTH, is the brainchild of Brodie Haupt, Drew Haupt, Darren Hodgkin and John Kerr, and this week (1 March) began enabling brokers with their own ACLs to become accredited and access their digital mortgage offering, which includes an owner-occupied variable mortgage with principal and interest rates starting from 2.09 per cent (2.15 per cent comparison).
WLTH’s broker offering is initially only available to brokers holding their own ACL, those able to write off panel, while talks with aggregators are finalised.
[Related: Neolender CEO reveals broker plans]
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