RedZed sweeps up ME business
RedZed Lending Solutions is the buyer of ME's run-down business banking portfolio, the Melbourne non-bank picked from a field of nine parties.The sale affects A$240 million in assets, or around A$160 million in ME's risk-weighted assets if business banking is synonymous with "corporate" in the bank's September 2016 financial disclosures.The sale does not include ME's existing business term deposits and business online savings accounts, which remain with ME, the bank said in a statement.Existing ME business banking customers will have their finance contracts and associated security transferred to RedZed over the coming months and all current lending contracts will remain unchanged, ME said. The assets RedZed is buying are the depleted stock of a line of business that featured, once, in ME's thinking on the merit of diversifying its business mix.At $160 million in RWAs, this loan pool is now 30 per cent smaller than it was in September 2015 and half the size it was in 2014.The loans are mostly commercial property loans, with equipment finance lending making up the balance."Commercial loans fit neatly into our warehouse," Evan Dwyer, managing director of RedZed, said.?Of the equipment finance loans, Dwyer said: "This is what the self-employed borrowers have been asking for."Of the credit quality, Dwyer said it was "excellent", if balanced by "interesting ones" in need of "a unique solution in a structured financing environment.""The sale allows ME to focus on core business - growing its residential home loan portfolio," the bank said.