Niche lenders fare better in January
HSBC and AMP are two niche lenders writing new home loans at a rapid pace, while a third, Bendigo, is showing sprightly gains.Banks in aggregate, however, have continued to cede market share to non-bank funders over recent months, data from APRA and RBA shows.Financial aggregates published by the Reserve Bank of Australia for January 2011 show that home loans increased by 0.6 per cent over the month, which is consistent with the rate of monthly growth (with only minor fluctuations) over the last nine months.The share of this growth going to banks, however, is beginning to decrease. Based on APRA data, which covers all banks but not other lenders, banks only accounted for two-thirds of home loan growth in the month of January.Banks had matched system growth for most of the preceding year.Among banks a couple of niche lenders that had restricted lending in the wake of the GFC are now chasing new business aggressively, including HSBC (up close to eight per cent over the last quarter, and up 25 per cent over a year) and AMP (up four per cent over the quarter, though the bank has only recently seen fit to step up the pace).Growth over the last quarter of 4.2 per cent for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is more than double the rate of system growth, and that rate lifted even further in January. A revival in lending through mortgage managers, and funded under the Adelaide Bank umbrella, is responsible for most of the turnaround at the bank.Some other lenders are faring less well, especially Macquarie Bank, which reported a decline in home loans of more than one per cent over the month and more than four per cent over the quarter.Among big banks, National Australia Bank is also reporting growth of more than twice system over the quarter, a trend that appears to be due more to the efforts of the brokers tied to Advantedge, and the Choice, Fast and PLAN origination channels of that division.NAB's new UBank-branded home loan will also be funded through Advantedge.Commonwealth Bank reported growth in home loans of less than half system for January, which takes into account above-system growth for the BankWest brand. For the CBA brand alone there was negligible growth in home loans last month.This is consistent with the adverse views of the CBA brand on the monthly measures of customer satisfaction reported by Roy Morgan research for January.Among home loan customers the satisfaction score for CBA is down 7.5 percentage points over three months, to 66.4 per cent as of January. The decline in ranking of the other major banks is more muted, or negligible in the case of NAB.