Australian Finance group will acquire 75 per cent of asset finance aggregator National Finance Alliance, which trades as Fintelligence.

AFG will pay A$52.5 million for its stake in Fintelligence, which is forecast to make a net profit of $6.6 million in 2021/22. It has an exclusive option to acquire the remaining 25 per cent over the next three years.

Fintelligence, which was established in 2018, services 285 brokers and is currently settling $80 million a month.

The combined group will service a network of 3335 brokers and settle more than $1.7 billion of asset finance annually.

AFG settled $43.6 billion of residential mortgages and $2.3 billion of commercial loans in 2020/21.

AFG chief executive David Bailey said Fintelligence has a leading technology platform that will deliver efficiencies for the whole business.

AFG has been on the acquisition trail over the past couple of years, as it seeks to diversify its business. In June it paid $15 million for a 7.6 per cent stake in neobank Volt.

Under the deal, AFG has access to Volt’s digital banking services and technology platform, which will be used for AFG credit decisioning.

Last month, AFG launched a new loan, Sparc, under a white label arrangement with Volt. The loan is accompanied by a personal financial management tool called Handl.

In August 2019, it announced a merger with mortgage aggregator Connective Group but the deal was called off in July this year after a lengthy and unresolved court approval process.