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Pepper Money has released its full year CY2021 results, and has announced a statutory net profit after tax of $130.7 million – an increase of 31% on the previous year.
Total originations grew by 84%, with mortgage originations doing particularly well (+89%). Asset finance originations also performed strongly (+70%), and total operating income lifted by 18% to $375.8 million.
These are Pepper Money’s first full-year results following its listing on the ASX in May 2021, and CEO Mario Rehayem said they are “a testament to our ability to deliver on our strategy.”
“We’re very proud to present our figures today, and they really are a testament to the business and the people inside it,” Rehayem told Australian Broker.
“We’re very grateful, particularly to the mortgage brokers who support Pepper Money and have done so for many years. We’re very happy that the numbers that we’ve announced, and I think they send a very clear message around our ability to execute scale.”
“Being the leading digital non-bank gives us a lot of advantages to take to the market,” Rehayem explained.
“We have market leading turnaround times, and a strong set of products that cater to a wide range of customers. We have an ability to deliver consistency in our credit decisions which builds trust with our mortgage brokers, and that has really been something that they’ve been complimentary of for many years. We understand the brokers and the customers, and we are designing our products, processes and experiences off the back of that.”
Rehayem noted that a significant part of Pepper Money’s focus has been on the ‘underserved’ segments of the market, and this has driven its high origination rates over the last year. He noted that the mortgage sector has been particularly competitive, but despite this, Pepper was able to achieve record originations of $6.4 billion.
Total Lending Assets Under Management also increased by 19% to $15.8 billion, which Rehayem said has been driven by strong demand across all asset classes.
“We’ve definitely been a beneficiary of the total market growing, and we’ve seen more customers tuning into non-banks,” Reyahem said.
“We have a 21-year history in this space, and we’ve consistently been able to roll out new products to serve different market segments. I think the banks have become very simple in what their offerings are, and that is leaving a large number of underserved customers.”
“We’ve had ten years of double-digit growth, so the ability to increase in scale is not foreign to Pepper Money,” he added.
“It’s part of our DNA. We’ll be looking to continue that over the next year, as well as rolling out new digital competencies that will help better serve brokers and their customers.”
“We remain focused on executing our vision to help half a million customers trust Pepper Money to finance their homes, cars, equipment and commercial properties by 2023,” Rehayem concluded.
“Our customer, new product and distribution plans, places us in the best position to continue to capture opportunities for growth. We have a strong proven track record of growth, and expect this will continue as we expand our market share.”
