Teachers Mutual Bank has achieved strong profit growth in the 2015 financial year, driven by solid growth in residential lending.
According to the mutual lender’s full-year results released yesterday, Teachers Mutual Bank recorded home loan lending growth of 12.3% in the year to June 2015, to $3.8 billion. Net profit after tax was up 15.4% from the 2014 financial year, to $29.8 million.
Steve James, CEO of Teachers Mutual Bank said broker-generated loans contributed significantly to the robust growth in its mortgage book.
“We have only been dealing through the broker channel for about 18 months and so we have been building up the number of accredited brokers. We are on the panel of nine aggregators now and we have about 1,200 individual brokers,” he told
Australian Broker.
“A really big proportion of our lending this year was attributed to brokers. We lent about $1 billion dollars last year and about $200 million of that was through the broker channel. We are very pleased with that result and the way brokers interact with our members.”
James also revealed plans to
Australian Broker to grow its broker network by more than 60%.
“We do have plans to grow our broker network. There are about 12,000 brokers accredited with the
MFAA, so we have about 10% of that, but we would certainly like to grow. I would be very happy to see 2,000 brokers accredited with Teacher’s Mutual Bank by the end of the 2016 financial year.”
To help grow its third-party reach, James says the bank will invest in getting more people on the ground. The mutual lender recently hired full-time BDMs in Queensland and Victoria, in addition to already having BDMs on the ground in WA and NSW.
He also said Teachers Mutual Bank will be investing more funds into the broker channel to improve its systems to get loans through quicker. However, James says the mutual’s quick turnaround times have always been praised by its broker partners.
Due to the success in the broker channel, James also revealed to
Australian Broker that there are serious discussions about Unibank moving into the broker space. Teachers Mutual Bank merged with the former Unicredit, now Unibank, in Ausugt.
“There are still discussions going on, however there are certainly plans to move into the broker market. With the success Teachers Mutual Bank have already had in that market, it would be fantastic to have Unibank in the broker market too.”
Despite a recent report by Moody’s claiming that heightened competition in home lending will threaten the mutual banking sector, James told Australian Broker he is confident about the future.
“If you look at all the larger mutual banks, including Teachers Mutual Bank, they are all quite well and growing their loan books. If you are growing your loan book at 12.3% then you are doing pretty well against the four major banks.
“Certainly, I believe our volumes would be similar in the next 12 months and I believe the mutual movement has got a strong focus on growth for the next 12 months.”
