While previously it only accredited advisers in Auckland and Christchurch, it now has a much broader geographic coverage.
BNZ head of third party distribution, Adam Ward says the bank is a long way ahead of its volume targets.
“Volume is not my issue,” he says. “Capacity to service that volume” at peak times is more of an issue.
The bank has taken on an additional 11 credit assessors to help manage the volume. Ward says BNZ now has 47 staff servicing the broker market, including 24 credit assessors.
He says BNZ aims to turn around an application within two days. Like all banks it has had issues here but he says BNZ is “hitting its SLAs much more regularly than it was previously.”
“Certainly it’s not 100% of the time,” he says, but it is improving
Ward says the bank is doing well on a market share basis, even though only 25%of brokers have access to its services.
His goal is to account for 20% market share of business being written by the end this year.
He says BNZ is currently working on plans to bring on board the remainder of the NZFSG advisers. He acknowledges other groups have also been keen to accredit with BNZ and the bank is currently working on a roll out plan.
Mortgage advisers have liked BNZ’s offset product, Total Money, and the bank has also been focused on pricing.
“Pricing has been reasonably sharp.”
Also the trail commission model has been attractive to “brokers with a long term view of building their business.”
Ward says the big thing for the bank is to see it return to the market and be a good partner with mortgage advisers.
He says the bank has already learnt a lot of things and it has been fortunate to leverage off its parent National Australia Bank.
“NAB have been fantastic,” he says.
