Pepper Money has reported a 41% rise in NPAT as they posted their financial results for the first half of 2021.
Buoyed by the resurgent Australian property market, the non-bank lender saw NPAT rise to $56 million, a number that would have been $66.1m were it not for the costs of their recent IPO.
Pepper originated $3.7 billion in loans, a 40% spike, for a total of $16bn in assets under management.
June, the last month of the reporting period, was their strongest on record for originations, with $800m in loans written.
They put the success of the year so far down to the huge rise in home lending, spurred by interactions with brokers, as well as their work in the asset finance space.
“The result reflects Pepper’s strong track record of delivering growth in our chosen segments via innovative lending solutions,” said CEO Mario Rehayem.
“The strength and depth of our extensive partner network has enabled us to respond to customer demand, delivering record originations across both Mortgages and Asset Finance in 1H 2021.”
“Our originations hit a milestone this half, we helped over 27,000 customers in the period either purchase or refinance a home, or secure asset finance, a record in our 21 years of business.”
“Customers continue to choose Pepper for its service and real-life product offerings, our purpose built digital capabilities set us apart from other non-bank lenders enabling us to approve loans within industry leading timeframes for a wider customer segment of the market”.
“Our disciplined approach to lending, coupled with proactive ongoing engagement with customers and partners and the strength in underlying conditions has seen loan losses fall to 0.28% of Lending AUM compared to 0.37% in the same period last year.”
“While we have seen a marginal increase across the mortgage prepayment rate, it is broadly in line with our historical and external benchmark rates and not unexpected given the level of refinancing activity observed in the market.”
“We remain focused on improving experience across all stages of the customer journey including ways we can reward customers for loyalty.”
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