New ground: New areas of focus for the non-major banks

AMP

New origination and assessment tech

We’ve made some big, bold choices in the way we’re going to originate loans in the future. We’ve made decisions to change providers, not only for the origination, but also our assessment platform.

We hear the feedback from brokers about the frustration of continually having to duplicate effort and work. We’re looking at how we can pull through data to give them surety and certainty. There should be no reason why some customers can’t walk away from an interview with a broker with a loan approved (and that’s where we’re heading in 2025).

But we’re also doing new things. We’re currently building a new digital banking experience targeting Australian small businesses, in partnership with Engine by Starling in the UK. This will bring a digital-first enablement not seen in Australia before to support lending to small and microbusinesses. We’re also looking at self-managed super funds as well and how we can lend to those entities.

So, 2025 for us is around streamlining, simplifying, the replatforming of our business, reducing duplication of work, and exploring new opportunities.

Bankwest

Understanding broker behaviour to be proactive

We are looking forward to widely rolling out new AI technology to ensure our offering to brokers is a secure, easy, and effortless experience that meets customers’ changing needs.

Up next, we’re looking at understanding broker behaviour within our portal so we can be proactive. For example, if we see a broker is reviewing a customer every six months, we could give them prompts about that customer at five and a half months, with a new valuation, pricing, and level of equity, etc.

If we push information to brokers early, that will help them service that customer. I think that’s a fair way off, but that’s where we’ll take it next.

Bendigo Bank

Tech upgrades so there’s less reason to leave

The broker channel is an important part of the bank’s strategy and future direction. We have been investing heavily to make sure that we’ve got a strong proposition in this segment of the market.

The bank is also investing in other technology upgrades that will make banking easier for our customers, no matter if that’s online, in a branch, or over the phone. Ultimately, we want our brokers to feel confident that once the deal settles, there is far less reason for a customer to want to leave.

It’s just really exciting that we’re now leveraging all of the investment the bank has put into the Bendigo brand through the broker channel, which we think not only helps the broker, but will be better for the customer (and also us as well!).

The brand is so strong in the market and it’s ranked very highly in terms of trust, whenever it’s surveyed. We’re hoping that it will help brokers, too, as customers may now potentially ask for a Bendigo loan. I don’t think any customer ever approached a broker and asked for an Adelaide Bank loan.

ING

New lending segments and an ESG focus

Over the next year, we’ll be looking to ultimately expand into different segments and service more needs of more clients, particularly in the investor space and self-employed.

ESG is also centre of our strategy now and moving forward. Collectively, households are among the greatest contributors of carbon emissions. We see it as our societal role to not only help customers understand the emissions that are being generated from their home, but also help customer[s] reduce them. So, we are developing mortgage products in this space, which we’ll be able to share more news on later in the year.

And, when we look at transformation over the medium or long term, it’s really thinking: How do we connect this concept of product, policy, and then process, with automation being at the heart of what we want to do?

MyState

A new lending platform and increased automation

While our service proposition has done a really good job for us up until now, by introducing digital platforms, this will help take us to the next level.

One of our big projects will be working on a new lending platform and digitising and moving to automation. It’s all about getting our lending platform to the point where we take away some of the work from the broker by embracing the digital side of things.

We’ve just welcomed a new leader to head up our lending transformation and look forward to rolling out improvements to our brokers.

Suncorp

Sharing more data with brokers and becoming part of ANZ Group

The financial year 2025 is going to be an exciting year for us. We’ve recently become part of the ANZ Group. Both ANZ and Suncorp Bank have a really long history supporting brokers.

For Suncorp Bank, most new-to-bank customers come through this channel and the majority of our home loans are originated via brokers, so it’s an important channel that Suncorp Bank remains focused on to ensure we continue delivering great outcomes for our brokers and customers. Where we see opportunity is in sharing more data with brokers about the customers they’ve brought to us. Whether it’s retention, pricing, variations, hardship … we’re looking at how we invite brokers into the tent to work in a more collaborative way. We’re also looking at how we can improve productivity and reduce unnecessary steps.

ubank

A new origination system

We will be launching a new origination system with Simpology. That’s going to be the next step forward for digital banking and digital origination, which we’re extremely excited to see rolled out and backed by our award-winning BDMs.

From day one, we’ve been clear that we’re a PAYG, 80 per cent LVR lender and that’s what we’ll continue to be. Now we want to see how quickly we can be through the origination process, the approval process, and the settlement process.