Growth in home loans settled through brokers more than doubled the growth in the retail channel over the past six months for a non-bank lender.
According to Homeloans’ half year results to December 2014, loan settlements through the third party channel grew 13%, while loans settled through the proprietary channel grew just 6%.
The lender’s total loan portfolio remained steady at $7.6 billion; however its branded loans under management increased 2.3% to $3.1 billion. The non-branded loan portfolio reduced slightly to $4.3 billion.
Homeloans’ CEO, Scott McWilliam says this is a positive result, especially given the intense competition in the market.
“To date in HY2015, we have continued to focus on growing lending volumes and building on the positive momentum from the second half of FY2014. We were especially buoyed by strong settlements in the pre-Christmas period of 2014. However, market pressures continue to impact on margins, which, in turn, has marginally reduced profit levels compared to previous periods,” he said.
Looking at the next six months, McWilliam says Homeloans has a clear aim to grow and diversify the business, with a focus on further enhancing product and service offerings across both the third-party broker partners and direct retail networks.
“We also continue to pursue the expansion of our broker and direct retail distribution footprint. Our recently announced acquisition of Barnes Home Loans … is an example of how we are successfully implementing this strategy to grow settlement volumes, particularly of our own branded loan products.”
