News

Advisers write nearly half of all ANZ's loans

Advisers are getting close to writing 50% of ANZ's new loans.

The amount of business advisers send to ANZ continues to grow, but the bank's chief executive warns they are going to be harder to deal with.

ANZ said 46% of its new business in the 12 months to September 30 came from advisers. This is up from 42% the previous year and from 40% in 2019.

While it is a clear upward trend, chief executive Antonia Watson says she doesn't know if it will hit 50% next year, she told TMM.

Watson reiteriated earlier comments that "the broker channel is really important to us".

She says mortgage advisers are a good source of information for customers who've got questions, and there are plenty of those as lending becomes more and more complex.

"We've got some tax changes and we get monetary policy changes and all sorts of things going on, interest rates are going up by the looks of things and certainly have a little bit already.

"We see that particularly in Auckland where it's even more complicated and it's harder to get into a home."

She says with changes like the CCCFA the bank will be harder to deal with.

"We get harder to deal with as some of these changes come in."

Added to that are requirements for 40% deposits, tax rate changes, and affordability assessments changing as interest rates rise.

Watson is not a fan of the impending CCCFA changes.

"It is going to make it a more onerous process for customers and for our staff to write a home loan because there's just so much more evidence of affordability of suitability that we have to ask for and retain."

She describes CCCFA as "unfortunate".

"The unfortunate thing is that we were already doing responsible lending. We just now have to do responsible lending with lot more onerous process around it."

While some non-banks think they will have an advantage with the changes, Watson is not so sure. 

"The non-bank sector still has to comply with the triple CFA and in some ways that might make it harder for them because we've had to put a lot of resource into compliance and under setting of our systems and our control frameworks around them."

As for the bank's near $2 billion profit, she says "there's just no question that it's a big number".

While people may complain an Australian-owned bank is making such big profits, she says it needs to be put into context. She jokes that even she struggles sometimes calling it millions rather than billions.

"We've got $185 billion worth of assets and our shareholders invested $15 billion into New Zealand. So those are types of numbers that you don't see around other parts of corporate New Zealand.

"So that's where the big number aligns to, but I can't argue that it's a big number."

Most Read

Get TMM delivered to your inbox each week

Sign Up