Explaining the winners and losers of our 2015 Brokers on Banks survey
Explaining the winners and losers of our 2015 Brokers on Banks survey
Westpac is 2015’s Bank of the Year, according to you. Our annual Brokers on Banks survey is now out, and tells us not only which lenders are impressing brokers, but also what is impressing brokers and where there is room for improvement.
The full results are in print – and soon to appear as an e-magazine – but we thought we’d take the time to reflect on the fortunes of the top five performers in this year’s survey. Brokers on Banks asks brokers to rank banks between 1-5 (very good) on 10 different performance categories; we take an average of those scores to produce the table you see below.
1. Westpac
This bank’s success shows that winning Brokers on Banks is a marathon, not a sprint. Westpac topped a number of diverse categories – credit policy (joint 1st), product diversification opportunities, training, online platform and overall service to brokers – in order to finish number one overall.
Westpac hasn’t always done so well, and didn’t even make 2013’s top five. However it seems that it is successfully changing brokers’ minds, a notable achievement given our average respondent had been in the industry for more than 10 years. And where Westpac was previously strong, it continues to be so – such as the ongoing popularity of its Rocket Repay products.
2. Commonwealth Bank
CBA is a perennial feature of the top five in recent years, and maintained a very high level of performance in 2015. It topped product range and credit policy (joint 1st), but was edged out by Westpac on supposed areas of strength like diversification opportunities, online platform & service and training & development.
Perhaps the real opportunities for CBA lies in improving in other areas such as turnaround times, BDM support and the overall service categories – top three finishes in these areas would seriously challenge Westpac’s dominance and could return CBA to the top.
3. ANZ Bank
Jumping from fifth to third requires a bank to actually win categories, and it seems ANZ has achieved dominance in the area of turnaround times (which brokers nominated as their most important performance category), following considerable investment. However ANZ also made the top three on a wide range of categories – credit policy, product range, diversification opportunities, BDM support and overall service.
ANZ is now showing consistent performance, but to move even higher might require the bank to look at areas of weakness. For instance when it came to interest rates and commission structure the bank was nowhere to be seen, although to be fair, no major did particularly well in the interest rates category.
4. Macquarie Bank
Macquarie’s performance in this year’s survey was hugely impressive, and hugely uneven. Wins in certain categories – commission structure and BDM support - were balanced with perhaps disappointing performance in some product performance categories. Still Macquarie still considerably outperforms the rest of the non-major sector, and one major bank.
5. NAB Broker
This survey might come as a disappointment to NAB Broker, given they were 2014’s Bank of the Year. Failure to win any categories has cost them, although they achieved top three finishes in turnaround times, online platform and service and commission structure. It’s also worth pointing out that the differences between ANZ, Macquarie and NAB Broker in the final scores were extremely slim.
We asked the third-party channel heads of these banks to respond to these results and will publish their comments in the next issue of MPA, 15.8.
