Faced with opposition from fintechs, big bank wants to up its mortgage approval offering
National Australia Bank’s chief executive said that the lender is shooting for mortgage approval times of as little as one hour as it strives to capture a larger share of the home loan market.
During NAB’s annual general meeting Friday, CEO Ross McEwan said that the bank now approved two-thirds of mortgage applications within one day, but that it would work to slash approval times even further, according to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald.
The comments came after Paul O’Sullivan, chair of rival ANZ Bank, conceded that the bank dropped the ball on mortgage approval times, costing it market share during the pandemic housing boom. ANZ takes about 10 days to approve simple home loans and around 32 days for more complex loans.
The major banks are being squeezed by competition from fintechs and buy-now-pay-later players, forcing them to ratchet up their investment in technology and automation in order to compete in Australia’s red-hot property market, the Herald reported.
“We’ve been able to speed up unconditional approval times on home loans, to give close to two-thirds of retail network customers an answer within a day,” McEwan said. “Our priority is to better use data to make lending decisions faster and improve our customer experiences in an increasingly digital and automated world. We want to make unconditional home loan approvals within an hour the standard for NAB customers.”
Read next: ANZ dropped ball on mortgage approval times – chairman
During the meeting, NAB execs faced grilling from shareholders over the bank’s corporate culture and wage underpayments after a scathing report by the Finance Sector Union revealed pervasive unpaid overtime, reports of bullying and mental health impacts among employees.
NAB Chair Philip Chronican said the bank took the report “very seriously” and that improving corporate culture was a long-term process.
“We have not declared victory,” he said. “The board do not expect excessive overtime to be part of the story at NAB.”
