Banks may be softening anti-broker stance

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The boss of one of New Zealand's largest groups of mortgage brokers remains hopeful that the household-name banks that refuse to sell home loans through brokers will do so in future.

Monday, August 18th 2008, 5:40AM

by Maria Scott

Christchurch-based Mortgage Link is rumoured to be in discussions with Bank of New Zealand and Kiwibank about distributing mortgages for the lenders. Both have taken strong anti-broker stances claiming they can offer better value to borrowers by dealing with them direct.

Rod Templeton, chief executive of Mortgage Link would not confirm or deny that any discussions were underway.

"Any discussions are part of the commercially confidential relationships we have."

But Templeton said that the group had a stated policy of trying to convince lenders who did not use it as a channel – including overseas lenders not currently in the market – to look at the Mortgage Link proposition.

Mortgage Link has recently been advertising to recruit new brokers to its network, but Templeton said this should not be linked to any suggestions the company was expanding in preparation for deals with BNZ and Kiwibank.

Bruce Thompson, a spokesman for Kiwibank said that the bank was not planning to sell through brokers "at this stage".

"We do have discussions from time to time with organisations in the broking industry as we believe it is wise to always keep an open mind on opportunities. In that context we will have talked with Mortgage Link – and have been contacted over the years by many brokers – but nothing has progressed to a sales agreement."

A spokesman for BNZ said that the bank had not used mortgage brokers for some time and its position had not changed.

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