AMP Bank has set out its stall to the broker channel, with their managing director making bold claims on turnaround times.
Sean O’Malley, a 20-year industry veteran, told Australian Broker that his bank were looking to grow in 2022, with the broker channel the most important conduit of that growth.
“I think the most important thing for us is that AMP bank is focused on growth, and a big part of focus on growth is about being a service-led business,” he said.
“Brokers are our predominant channel, and our most important channel. For brokers, we can expect from AMP is about continuing to improve our speed of turnaround times.
“Turnaround times have been consistently ranked top five this year, but we want to do better than that. We’re continuing to invest, to deliver improved turnaround times, because we know how important that is for brokers and for their clients.”
“We’re continuing to invest to make the experience not just faster, but also easier. We’re doing that through investments in digitization, investment in automation, and continuing to simplify so that so that, again, it makes it easier for a broker to help a customer get a faster time to yes.
“With AMP Bank, that’s our focus and what brokers should be able to expect.”
With interest rates the hot topic in the broker channel, O’Malley said that it was up to brokers to pass on the news of changes to their clients, and that AMP was there to offer education to their third party partners.
“Nobody can predict the decisions that the RBA may make, and I’ll leave that to the economists to try,” he said.
“What we’re doing with brokers is running webinars and helping them on their journey of educating customers. So far, they have focused on credit and credit decisioning policy on products and product features, as well as how to think about splitting loans, how to use offset accounts and things like that.
“We’re continuing to educate brokers on how they can educate customers. That’s our focus for next year. We’ve seen that fixed rates this year have been incredibly popular, and we can see that they’re becoming less popular and that variable rates are returning to be the dominant product.
“It’s still very competitive on variable, and that’s a sign that the market is very competitive. The days of competitive fixed rates have probably passed for the moment.
“The role of the broker in helping educate customers is really important. That's why 66% of Australians are going to brokers because they do benefit from the system.
“This is the biggest financial decision that customers make and they do want support, and brokers are well equipped to do that. We’ve seen the cycle turn, and we will see more upward pressure on rates than downward pressure.
“Even though in some segments, variables are falling, there’s more pressure upwards than downwards.
“The role of the broker is going to be incredibly important helping customers navigate through that and, and helping customers navigate through whether they I be fixing some, or a portion of their loan, and how they should think about managing that risk.
“Again, the role of the broker is incredibly important and I think banks, including us, have a really important role in helping to educate and make sure brokers understand the options and the choices so that they can then be explained to customers.”
