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A comparison website has planned to build its own mortgage book by hiring brokers internally.
MakesCents.com.au, conceived by data and lead generation firm EMBR to specialise in new client acquisition for financial services groups, has announced that it is launching its own broking service.
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The website currently operates as a comparison website in Australia and New Zealand to allow consumers to compare quotes and prices on home loans, life insurance, health insurance, electricity and gas, debt reduction, and solar energy.
It generates home loan inquiries across various areas, including refinancing, first home buyers (FHB), and commercial lending, with these leads being then distributed to medium and large mortgage broking firms and aggregators for servicing (on a cost per lead and revenue-share basis).
The company has now announced that it is planning to vertically integrate and convert its own leads by building its own mortgage broking offering.
To offer these services, it has recruited three mortgage brokers internally as well as two support staff, and is aiming for scale over the next 12 months.
It is aggregating under Finsure, which MakesCents.com.au said would help provide broker support and training to enable it to recruit suitable brokers, as well as application programme interface (API) access to enable it to build out customer and broker user experience design (UX) and user interface (UI).
Commenting on the new direction of the comparison website, EMBR group managing directed Jimmy L'Almont said: “The pivot into vertical integration and servicing our own leads in-house is a long-term play to leverage our existing data and build value and customer loyalty around the MakesCents.com.au brand.
“We also have some lofty ideas for innovation and disruption in the space.”
Mr L'Almont added that the company has the marketing and data infrastructure at hand to build a “significant” broking business.
“For us, it was just a matter of finding the right aggregator and hiring the right staff,” he said.
“After our initial discussions with Finsure and witnessing their broker support structures and commitment to technology and third-party integrations, I knew it was going to be the perfect fit,” he said.
[Related: Finsure celebrates a decade in the mortgage industry]
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