NAB to ditch HomeSide brand
NAB will try to build on an already impressive turnaround in its HomeSide home loan business by ditching the brand.HomeSide and NAB could never really shed the legacy of the bank's losses on this US mortgage processor in the early 2000s, a fiasco that should have forced former chief executive Frank Cicutto out the door earlier than his 2004 fall over an FX scandal.Nor did HomeSide, in its early years, produce the leap in mortgage processing efficiency for NAB that was promised early on.The HomeSide platform fractured into incompatible systems and the Australian end of NAB's four-country mortgage platform was the worst of the lot.HomeSide Australia did allow NAB to develop a third party brand - a task at which, at least recently, it has thrived.Threatened some years ago with "turn around or shut down", NAB's management delivered.The profit turnaround at HomeSide pushes A$1 billion, with the division a reliable profit earner.To push volume and build broker loyalty, NAB is now tinkering with price as well as brand.It will pay a first year trail fee of 15 basis points, The Adviser reports. The newsletter speculated CBA will match this payment.NAB will also pay higher commission on trails for loans from the sixth year, lowering incentives to brokers to churn customers into new products.So NAB and CBA will shed margin to build market share. NAB HomePlus is the new brand. NAB Peak Performance will be a second brand.