HSBC will settle its purchase of AMP Banking this weekend, a deal that makes it New Zealand’s sixth largest bank.
One aspect of the purchase agreement provides for HSBC to be able to market its banking products through the AMP advisers network for an initial period of five years.
"Our hope is that it’s such a great agreement that we continue it for many years," HSBC’s head of retail banking Alex Bentley says.
The reaction so far from both AMP advisers and AMP Banking customers has been positive, he says.
But lest mortgage brokers start feeling they might be left out in the cold, Bentley says this arrangement won’t alter its existing arrangements with brokers or provide AMP agents with any more favourable terms than brokers can access.
"The products that will be sold by AMP advisors, or anybody who we’re in an alliance with, will be HSBC products," Bentley says. "We won’t compromise our own distribution channels."
The last thing his bank wants is for their customers to find they can get different deals from it from different distribution channels, he says.
That doesn’t necessarily mean all existing relationships with brokers will continue. "Brokers are always being added and deleted," Bentley says. All existing relationships are continually monitored both in terms of the quantity and the quality of business generated, he says.
He agrees to the suggestion that HSBC is already very fussy about which brokers it deals with. "We have a pretty rigid accreditation process."
HSBC had hoped to hire most of AMP Banking’s existing 35 staff and Bentley says his company has already received 14 acceptances from the 15 AMP staff it has tried to recruit. The remaining AMP staff are still required through the transition period, but HSBC is still hoping to be able to hire them once it is able to offer them jobs.
