Mortgage Link spices up its home loan offering

MortgageLink has teamed up with Australian-based Pepper Money to offer a white label home loan product.

It is available to LFG own brand advisers and Mortgage Link branded advisers.

White labels are popular in Australia with most of the large aggregation groups having some form of offer. In New Zealand Bluestone have its Select Home Loan white label with NZ Financial Services Group.

Mike Pero Mortgages also has a product through its sister company Liberty Finance.

Pepper Money country head Campbell Smith says that while a white label product requires a significant investment and commitment from both parties to the arrangement, the non-bank lender may consider arrangements with other strategic partners on a selected basis.

While the products and credit parameters do not represent a large departure from Pepper’s current offering, under the white label partnership, Link are able to control branding and marketing strategy, commission benefits, and in time may introduce product enhancements in response to their network’s needs, or to target a particular market or segment.

Link Home Loans are also offering a special rate discount to launch the product to its 140 strong mortgage adviser network.

Smith says white labelled product will help Mortgage Link expand its brand and will serve as another value added offering for their adviser network.

"The ultimate form of the Link Home Loan product is determined by Link” he says.

Pepper will provide assessment and origination infrastructure for the advisors, along with branded digital advisor tools, as well as adviser and borrower support services.

Smith says there is a wide array of white label product offerings in the Australian market, and therefore the wider Pepper group has a strong white label capability and experience that serves to support the New Zealand business and associated partners.

Mortgage Link is part of Link Financial Group and it writes close to $3 billion of home loans a year.

NZ Home Loans announced earlier this week that it had taken a majority stake in LFG. The size of the investment and cost are undisclosed.”