Commonwealth Bank has revealed that its onshore loan processing facilities have been at the heart of their ability to keep turnaround times down during the last 12 months, and that they have added over 400 staff in an attempt to get on top of the massive increase in loan applications.
Turnaround times at banks have been a pain point for brokers for years, and were exacerbated during the pandemic as offshore processing saw waiting times balloon out.
It comes as Australia’s biggest bank unveiled a new third party strategy and committed to changing the weighting between the proprietary business and their broker channel business.
“One of our strengths has been our onshore capabilities,” said CBA Head of Third Party Adam Croucher.
“I think we’ve put on 420 to 440 people through the process over the last 12 months. Being able to do that in a COVID challenged environment, uplifting and training those people via Zoom or Teams and every digital asset that we can has been difficult, but it has been made easier by having them on shore.”
“We haven’t seen the huge degradation of our service offering as a result of anything outside of Australia. Though it has been difficult, we have been able to stand that up relatively more easily than our peers.”
According to Croucher, the onshoring of staff has been a key reason why CBA has been able to get so many Aussies into their first home this year.
“I think that’s the strength of CBA, as one of only two major lenders under the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, we’ve been able to support the Australian community during a really tough time,” he said.
“We’ve been able to help nearly 6,400 customers purchase their first home sooner than any other lender, and that’s been pivotal for us to ensure that our competitive home loan products and industry leading features really focus on the needs of Australia.”
