White label notches up $8 billion for 2021
One of Australia’s largest broker aggregators has reported a record-breaking 73% growth in applications lodged for its exclusive white label home loan portfolio.
Connective Home Loans (CHL) notched up $8.025 billion in applications for calendar 2021.
It attributed the growth to having some of the quickest turnaround times in the industry and employing a team of dedicated experts providing broker support at every stage. This included responding quickly to questions, workshopping scenarios, triaging and escalating applications directly with lender credit and assessment teams.
Michael Goerner (pictured), head of CHL, said the exponential growth had been driven by multiple factors, but having the right team and excellent relationships with lender partners was critical to preventing bottlenecks and making processes as easy as possible for brokers.
Total settlements for the calendar year were $4.48 billion, a 76% increase on 2020.
Goerner said CHL had differentiated itself, with all five of its residential loan products consistently in the top 10 fastest lenders in median time to unconditional approval, coupled with all products being extremely competitive in the market.
He said CHL had consistently delivered tight turnaround times through a period of intense mortgage demand, closing out the calendar year with $1.38 billion in settlements for the October-December quarter, up an incredible 91% year on year.
December alone delivered $943 million in applications and $531 million in settlements, representing 11% of Connective brokers’ business with all lenders.
“Cutting edge technology was paramount in 2021, particularly with the introduction of CHL’s new digital home loan, Connective Affinity,” said Goerner.
“Innovation was also key, with the digitisation of assessment and verification functions across the portfolio, to make doing business easier and faster for brokers and their clients.
“Buyers want to know they have access to innovative mortgage solutions that are competitive on pricing, service and support – both pre- and post-settlement – and that’s what CHL delivers.”
Goerner said CHL had focused on ensuring it had the right people in the right roles. Its national support team expanded in 2021 with two new BDM roles created.
“We also established a new significant role held by Chris Pearce as national manager sales support, who is responsible for leading the BDM team and improving both the broker and client experience,” he said.
CHL also expanded its offering, growing from four products to six during 2021. This included Connective Elevate, providing a broad range of options suiting prime, near prime and specialist clients, as well as Connective Affinity, an industry-first fully digital loan for brokers which is integrated into Connective’s software platform Mercury Nexus.
“We want to support brokers to strengthen their relationships with their clients,” said Goerner. “Our ability to provide a direct line between brokers and lender partners also helps strengthen the relationship between brokers and their clients, rather than clients and lenders.
“In addition to swift turnaround times, maybe more than ever before, brokers need to ensure they have breadth and depth in product offerings for their clients. CHL gives brokers the options to service the full spectrum of client types, and our exponential growth tells us that our brokers are recognising this.”
