Aussie celebrates 30 years with record loan settlements

For 30 years, Aussie Home Loans has been providing consumers greater choice in the home loan market and today the country’s largest retail mortgage broker celebrates its birthday, buoyed by stunning growth figures.

The well-known broker network has just notched up 14 straight months of record loan settlement volumes and its merger with Lendi Group means Aussie is powering ahead with better technology  to further boost broker businesses and smooth the loan process for their clients.

“Over the last three decades, Aussie has led the industry and helped over one million customers on their home loan journey by understanding their needs, being in their corner and providing straight-talking home loan advice,” said Lendi Group CEO of distribution Brad Cramb (pictured).

“As we look forward to the next 30 years, technology is going to be central to not only Aussie’s continued growth, but how we create better experiences for our customers and our brokers.”

FY21 was Aussie’s best financial year ever and the momentum has not slowed in FY22. For the last 14 months, Aussie has achieved record settlement results and, in January, total settlements were up over 40% year on year. 

A record 13 new franchise approvals were completed in December and 15 new Aussie stores are due to open in the first six months of 2022.

In January, the Aussie Home Loans portfolio surpassed $10 billion in value while, earlier this month, its flagship product Aussie Select surpassed $8 billion. 

“We’ve got 1,000 brokers across Australia and over 225 stores,” Cramb said. “We’ve got a very close relationship, a very broker partnership mentality, which I think does set us apart.”

“We really do walk the talk with representative groups that we’re very close to. We’re in constant contact with them about how we can adjust to the market, we’ve got our Voice of Broker Group and our franchise council for the two major distribution arms.”

Aussie also runs performance and development programs across its broker network, created to support the needs of broker businesses as they grow.

“We’ve got a very unique business distribution model that we’ve built over 30 years and refined – the way that we provide marketing and we provide leads and the way we manage our customer relationships allows us to take advantage of market growth.”

Brokers are enjoying halcyon days in terms of market share with MFAA figures showing brokers are writing almost 67% of new residential home loans.

Cramb said this was due to their value proposition with brokers able to create choice for customers in a complex market.

“If you look at worldwide trends we’re not dissimilar to major Western markets in regards to the role of the broker. I think it will continue – 67% (market share) is the latest data point and I can only see that growing.

“Over the last few years, customers have become more savvy and aware of the value a broker can bring to that relationship. People have had to look at what is usually the largest expense in their life with a lot more focus.”

Aussie operates a hybrid engagement model where a mobile broker can visit clients at their home or customers can go to a retail broker store. Cramb said Aussie brokers had pivoted to virtual meetings with customers during COVID lockdowns. The industry had made other changes, including adopting digital signatures.

“If you can think of a silver lining to any cloud, the customer experience outcomes through COVID have now led to potentially some more efficiencies in our industry we hope will continue into the future,” he said.

The merger of Aussie and Lendi was about bringing together significant complementary capabilities, Cramb said.

“We’ve got a brand that’s been established over 30 years with the largest retail distribution arm in Australia with the Lendi Group which has created best in class digital. Technology is obviously important but the people, systems, operations that support that are really important as well.

“Our vision and what we’ll be doing with our Aussie network is to create a dynamic mortgage broking business that can offer online or offline channels – optimising the efficiencies that the technology platform offers is a key enabler to that strategy.”

Cramb said rolling out the technology built by the Lendi team to the Aussie broker network is a key next step.

This would provide benefits such as easier application processing, greater customer interactions, broader product options, increased lead generation for brokers, reduced operational costs and “a greater customer satisfaction across the network”.

“The role of the broker has never been more important and it’s about enabling the broker network with that technology and support functions is the key focus over the next 12 months,” he said.

Cramb said he couldn’t be happier with the progress of the merger. A series of test and learns or pilots had been carried out in recent months.

“Those pilots have been very successful and we’ll be rolling out scale versions of them early this year, including non-technology based changes to operational processes to improve customer interaction, and some marketing lead gen changes,” he said.

“The brokers are extremely excited and pleased with the changes that have been implemented already which have improved their businesses.”

Cramb said interest rates can’t stay low forever and the RBA was signalling there was a chance it could move on rates this year rather than in 2023.

“Regardless of what happens, the role of the mortgage broker is going to be key in making sure people are in the right home loan,” he said.

As part of its birthday celebrations, Aussie will be giving five lucky customers around Australia the chance to win and live mortgage free for a year. Existing and new customers who attend an appointment with an Aussie Broker between February 14 and April 30, 2022, will go in the draw to win.