Heritage Bank has announced it is centralising its loan processing, closing down its New South Wales and Victoria offices and moving all activities into its Queensland office.
“Heritage Bank is continually reviewing all aspects of the way we do business, to ensure we deliver the best possible services and products to both our customers and our broker partners,” Michael Trencher, head of broker distribution, said in a broker note released on Monday (3 July).
The NSW and Victoria offices will be closed at the end of the month.
“Centralising our processing function into one office will enable us to deliver a more efficient, consistent and better overall service to mortgage brokers,” Paul Francis, general manager retail services told
Australian Broker.
“Running three processing units in three locations created some inefficiencies at times. We believe that centralising our processing function into one office will enable us to deliver a better overall service to our broker partners, wherever they are located.”
Despite the move, Francis said the bank is “absolutely committed” to its national broker network.
“We believe this will have no negative impacts and will actually be a positive,” he said.
“We’re not reducing the number of staff in our processing team, we’re just locating them together in a central location. That will give us efficiency and scalability improvements.”
The decision will put a dedicated team of processing staff under the one roof with the ability to scale up and handle workloads from brokers across Australia, Francis said.
All state managers and business development managers will continue to operate in Sydney and Melbourne, he added.
A new Heritage Bank Broker Service Line will be introduced as part of the transition to assist brokers in getting the information they need quickly and accurately.
“The Broker Service line is a specific telephone line dedicated to brokers only. It will be single point of contact into our broker processing office for brokers, who will then have their query redirected to the relevant person,” Francis said.
The line will assist brokers by:
- Providing ease of access on the status of their loans
- Offering added convenience via a single number for all queries
- Minimising disruption during the centralisation process
- Allowing for a more consistent level of service
“This feature will actually be ongoing, and will continue after the transition period,” he said.
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