The Bank of New Zealand’s current aggressive anti-mortgage broker advertising is "a bit of a back-handed compliment" to brokers, Mortgage Brokers Association chairman Brian Berry reckons.
Monday, April 26th 2004, 2:05AM
by The Landlord
"We’ve cut out brokers to give you a great home loan deal," is the line BNZ is currently using is its print and television ads.
"It’s recognising that we’re becoming more popular and our role in the home loan market," Berry says.
While the BNZ ad is implying that selling mortgages through brokers is more expensive through brokers, he wonders how they can know that since even before the BNZ made its decision to stop dealing with brokers in May last year, it sold less than 5% of its loans through brokers.
Berry also suggests the BNZ’s aggressive ad indicates it is suffering from not dealing with brokers. "They must believe the broker market is hurting the bank and they’re trying to counter the impact. If brokers are getting 30%, obviously they’re missing out on that."
Already another bank, HSBC, is taking on the BNZ, telling brokers: "We won’t cut you out," and promising to match BNZ’s heavily discounted two-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.69%.
