Lending technology developer Nano has given up mortgage lending and will focus its efforts on developing the banking software side of its business.
AMP Bank announced yesterday that it has acquired Nano’s residential mortgage portfolio, worth around A$400 million.
AMP Bank said Nano customers will transition to a comparable AMP product and maintain their current interest rate.
In October last year, the Australian Financial Review reported that Nano had suspended new lending because of “soaring funding costs”.
Now it has given up selling mortgages permanently. A statement posted on the company’s website yesterday says: “Nano’s business has evolved to being a provider of global leading technology to financial services companies. We are no longer providing a Nano home loan product.”
Nano was launched in July 2021, with a promise that applicants would get their approval in minutes. Everything involved in Nano’s origination process – customer identification, income and expense verification, credit records, property valuation and onboarding - was digital.
A set of algorithms did all the credit assessment and decision-making, and there was no paper at any stage of the process. It is that process Nano is now hoping to sell to other lenders.
In May last year the company secured its first software contract, when AMP Bank announced that it would use Nano’s technology to develop its own digital mortgage product.
AMP went live with a refinance offer using the Nano platform last October. In its statement yesterday it said it has plans to extend the use of the platform this year.
In a presentation last June, Nano co-founder and chief executive Andrew Walker said Nano was working with a top 10 Australian mortgage lender that was looking at using its platform.
Walker also said the company had plans to launch platform licensing businesses in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.
The company has not provided any updates since then.
In response to an inquiry about the progress of the business it said: “AMP is our first technology platform customer. We have a strong pipeline of future platform customers here in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.”