The volume of new business being handled by Rams Home Loans is well off since the mortgage funder became a prominent casualty of the global credit crunch. The decline may raise questions about the value remaining in the Rams brand, which will soon fall under the control of Westpac.Estimates from mortgage aggregators and larger mortgage originators contacted by this newsletter over the last week put the decline in new business directed to Rams from brokers over the last couple of months at between half and three quarters. Rams had originated close to $150 million a week in new business over the first seven or eight months of 2007. The report by Deloitte on the planned sale to Westpac, published four weeks ago, put the decline in new business at one third. However, the decline may now be worse than that.A significant proportion of broker-originated loans, both before and after Rams began to founder in September, were those that appealed to small business owners and sale traders, and both classes of loans are unlikely to feature in the Rams product suite once Wesptac controls the brand.Mortgage brokers accounted for 70 per cent of Rams' new business volumes in the September quarter, according to Deloitte, and Rams' franchises accounted for 30 per cent.There's also plenty of anecdotal talk among brokers of an excessive proportion of customers with Rams loans among those seeking to refinance those loans.Rams has to some extend attempted to defray the considerable brand damage linked to the adverse media coverage from its loss of access to wholesale funding and term debt markets - publicity magnified by the fact of being a publicly listed company. (By contrast, the travails of the new, small, unlisted and scarcely known Columbus Capital still hasn't warranted any coverage in any mainstream media outlet).Westpac six weeks ago agreed to buy the retail brand and franchise network of Rams for an effective price of $128 million. The bank began funding new loans for Rams under a warehouse facility last week.Shareholders of Rams have to approve the sale of the retail business at the annual meeting on Monday.