Neobank Volt has bought out Australian Mortgage, in a move that could see their funding allied to the fintech’s unique turnaround times proposal.
Australian Mortgage have long had one of the more effective loan approval processes on the market, and their hope is that, with the help of Volt, they will be able to scale quickly and offer it to more brokers.
“Since last October we’ve had a relationship with Volt back, where we’ve provided our technology, Intelligent Credit, to them. When we got to know each other even better, they thought they liked the company so much that they better buy it,” joked Kym Dalton, CEO of Australian Mortgage.
“Australian Mortgage will continue to trade as that, but we will be powered by Volt. Our existing team stays in place, as does our existing distribution base, including Mortgage Choice, but now we’ve got the balance sheet muscle of a bank behind us, so we can go do better things with greater capacity.”
The key linkup will be around Banking as a Service (BaaS), through which Volt will be able to use the Australian Mortgage offering at scale.
“What get brokers get is, first up, the Australian Mortgage model, which is a wholesale product exclusively for brokers and mortgage managers. We believe that we’re the first true digital innovator to make our innovations available to the wholesale sector.”
“I find it somewhat amusing that there’s this talk in the market of ‘We can do loans in 15 minutes’, and we need to shift the focus a little bit: it’s not how dextrous you are on a keyboard that determines how swift the approval process is, it’s the instantaneous credit decision once you have entered the data that is the critical point.
“If you’re fast on the keyboard and your situation is simple, it can be done in 15 minutes. If you’re sitting there with a broker in a consultation and your scenario is somewhat more complex, it might take a little longer. The key point is that once you’ve entered the data, the decision is instantaneous, and you don’t have to wait the 6-8 weeks that some of the majors expect you to wait at the moment.”
