ANZ lost market share in the home loan market along with flows from advisers, however chief executive Antonia Watson says it’s “at the margins.”
In the 12 months to September 30, adviser-originated flows fell from 61% to 59%, however advisers’ share of ANZ’s $116 billion home loan book grew 1% to 53%.
Watson says what she was more worried about, besides a drop in adviser business, was that the bank had lost market share overall.
She says it’s not surprising as the market is highly competitive with a lot of switching and ANZ, being the biggest lender, had the most customers to lose.
While acknowledging that it’s disappointing the bank is “pulling out all stops to reverse it.”
She is not sure if Westpac axing trail commissions will have much impact on ANZ.
“It’ll be interesting to see,” she says.
Watson notes the decision brings Westpac into line with ANZ (and ASB).
TMM is running its annual mortgage adviser survey and this year ANZ continues to be the most preferred big bank but has been receiving negative comments around turnaround times and servicing.
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Watson acknowledged the comments and said “I will totally own that we didn't put staff on quite early enough, when the market took off, and we've addressed that now.”
“We're very happy to see that we're well back in market on turnaround times. Now we get feedback from our advisor channel every week that comes to me, as well as a whole lot of bunch of other senior people, and we're very comfortable now that we've managed to address that.”
“That was definitely a bit of an own goal for a period of time for us that we worked very hard to remediate.”
Watson said the adviser channel remains important to the bank but it also wanted to build up its proprietary (branch) channel.
She says that the average loan size originated by an adviser is higher than its proprietary channel.
“It’s an absolute proof point that when you’re looking to borrow a lot of money you want someone that’s there to be your advocate, that can help negotiate for you; that can hold your hand and talk you through the process.”
While bank staff do that too they “the one thing they don’t do is…give you that sense of negotiation around banks.”
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