National Bank customers prey for other banks

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New Zealand’s home loan market will heat up over the next six months as ANZ takes an even more aggressive stance to acquire business, one mortgage broker says.

Thursday, September 27th 2012, 1:59PM 7 Comments

by Susan Edmunds

John Bolton, of Squirrel, says yesterday’s announcement that ANZ and National Bank are to merge under the ANZ brand would lead to a lot of promotional activity, probably beginning next month.

He said the move made sense and brokers already dealt with both banks as one. “From a broker perspective there is no difference between the brands. It’s more customer perception.”

Choice of bank wasn’t overly important to clients, he said, as long as they got a good deal and service. “In terms of choice, we still deal with a number of lenders.”

PAA chief executive Edward Richards said it was a positive thing for brokers because there would be less brand confusion in the marketplace.

ANZ spokesman Steffan Herrick said it was just a market perception that ANZ had been more aggressive in pursuing home loan business.

ANZ Bank accounted for $1.09 billion of the June quarter's growth, a record for any New Zealand bank.

Herrick said that for the past 12 months, all ANZ home loan offers had been available through National Bank and the carded rates were the same.

But David Tripe, of Massey University, said rival banks could take the opportunity to capitalise on the disruption in the market caused by National Bank customers finding themselves shunted to ANZ.

He said when Westpac acquired Trust Bank in the 1990s, it lost customers.

It had been suggested that up to 50% of National Bank’s customers might not want to switch to ANZ but Tripe said that was an exaggeration. “I would expect them to lose a few but 50% is way over the top.”

ANZ said brokers’ relationships with business development managers, business banking and commercial managers would stay the same, assessment team members would remain in their jobs, pending National Bank approvals would be honoured, National Bank applications could be sent through during the transition process and brokers would continue to be paid trail commissions for National Bank loans.

Broker commission rates would stay the same and home loan products and fees for National Bank customers would not change.
Tripe said he doubted brokers would have played ANZ off against National Bank anyway, over the past decade so it would not make a huge difference to them.

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