One of the biggest names in Australian digital banking, 86 400, has announced that it is to pair up with Choice Aggregation Services to expand their home lending options.
Choice can boast 1,400 brokers across the country and 86 400 will now be able to offer their digital home loans to this cohort directly as a result of the linkup. 75% of all broker nationwide will now have 86 400’s digital product available to them.
“86 400, we believe, is the first 100% digital mortgage available to brokers, so we’re really pleased that the Choice group is coming on board,” said 86 400 CEO Rob Bell. “We allow an entirely digital mortgage process: we don’t ask for physical bank statements, we don’t ask for rental statements, we do it all digitally. We do deal identification digitally. We have a really efficient, slick mortgage product and that gives brokers time back to spend with their customers on the things that are important.”
“We also offer a very competitive rate, as you would expect from a new challenger bank, and we have fantastic turnaround times, in terms of time from application to yes.”
While 86 400’s proposition to brokers is entirely digital, the features are those that one might expect from a regular home loan.
“Our mortgage is a fully-featured mortgage,” said Bell. “We have offset account, transaction account and savings accounts, variable options, interest only: all the things you’d expect, but it’s available through a digital bank.”
“The pain points that we are solving are broker pain points. We’ve taken away the paperwork and provided a faster time to yes or no, and in terms of what the customer receives, they’ve got a fully digital mortgage with all the bells and whistles that you’d expect from a big bank.”
This is the first big move since NAB acquired 86 400, and the new partnership confirms that 86 400 is looking to grow quickly with their new parent on board.
“We’ve said right from the start of the announcement of the transaction with NAB, when they became our single shareholder, that NAB’s intention was for us to grow and to develop and expand as we have,” said Rob Bell. “Adding additional brokers to our network is completely in line with that position. What the NAB transaction gives us is additional capital and access to capital, which means we’ll be able to grow our mortgage book even faster. Adding an extra aggregator gives us more brokers and allows us to accelerate on that growth.”
