eChoice a business in transition
Mortgage company eChoice completed its delisting from the Australian Securities Exchange in June and since then has pushed ahead with its plan to develop innovative digital approaches to the distribution of mortgages and other financial products.However, the company's 2015/16 results show that it is still going trough a period of rationalisation and its digital strategy has yet to produce results.eChoice reported a loss of A$7.9 million for the year to June, compared with a loss of $21.1 million the previous year.Commission and fee revenue fell from $49.8 million in 20145/15 to $34.5 million in the year to June.The company said its cash operating EBITDA of $7.1 million was up 0.8 per cent on the previous year and its underlying pre-tax profit of $1.7 million was more than double the previous year.Mortgage settlement volumes were up 3.3 per cent to $3.1 billion. The value of the loan book fell 5.3 per cent to $16.4 billion.The decline in revenue and the loan book were the result of the company's decision to focus less on wholesale loan origination and move to lower margin aggregation and direct settlements.The ongoing rationalisation of the business included an exit from the mortgage securitisation marketThe company's new direction includes "digital sourcing". Income from lead generation, in partnership with Domain, grew by 65.3 per cent.eChoice qualifies leads generated on the Domain website and sells them to financial institutions. During the year it dealt with 20,000 inquiries and referred 6000 leads.eChoice grew its own broker network by 20 per cent to 324.