Small fry fight for mortgage scraps
ME Bank, Bank of Queensland and ANZ are three banks gaining momentum from mortgage aggregator AFG as a third party sales channel, according to AFG's quarterly market share report. Macquarie also continues to do well.Market shares are otherwise pretty static, the majors comfortably receiving three quarters of the flow.AFG's own-brand home loans are straining for some share of the market.Brett McKeon, managing director, wrote in an email that "BOQ and ME Bank and second tier lenders more broadly have a greater risk appetite for investment, construction and higher LVR loans," adding that "they have been effectively forced into this space.""They also have the balance sheet flexibility to write cheap fixed rate loans and securitisers do not," he said, giving Resimac as an example of the latter."LMI [lenders mortgage insurance] costs are naturally increasing (due to not enough competition), which all makes competition in an increasingly competitive market with limited asset growth difficult."With regard to AFG's own product, McKeon said: "we are working on our funding cost and LMI dependencies as we speak, so I'm expecting a uplift in volume over the next quarter."Our volumes have grown so significantly over the last 12 months. Our own product may have dropped by percentage terms though we are still happy with the absolute quantum of business written."