St. George strides ahead with support centre
By
Ben Abbott
|
27/08/2010 5:58:00 AM
|
9
comments
St.George's Sydney-based broker support centre, Mortgage Central, is pushing third party support in the banking sector to new levels with innovations in loan scenario and post-settlement support as well as staff training.
The support centre, which has been in operation for two years and fields all third party queries, requires staff to hold a minimum of Certificate IV, to ensure all staff can respond and escalate broker enquiries and deals.
One arm of the team - loan scenarios - also requires education to a Diploma level, and as fully qualified credit personnel are able to advise on deal structuring and deal viability to help brokers get deals across the line.
St.George general manager for intermediary distribution, Steven Heavey, told Australian Broker the result of this investment in training was a fully qualified team that could "go into bat" for brokers.
"What we used to do, as do a lot of banks even today, is use a portion of the call centre to provide a service to brokers, and they were traditionally called the broker support area," Heavey said. "They would sit in the call centre, and they would traditionally read what was on the screen back to brokers."
However, Heavey said brokers could simply log on and find out the same information being read back to them, and feedback indicated the support was not adding any value, as contact staff could not influence outcomes.
"We thought we could do it a little bit better," Heavey said. The current structure includes a loan scenarios team, where brokers can run deals by the bank, a relationship management team, that manages and pushes deals through from application to settlement, and an additional post-settlement team - an added service and new innovation in the broker market.
"What we were finding is that once the deal had settled, invariably there was some mix-ups," Heavey said. He gives examples of customers who had not been sent their internet banking details, where accounts had not been linked, where credit cards had not been received, or were statement details were incorrect.
"Our post-settlement team handle all of that," Heavey said. "Customers don't have to walk into branches, customers don't have to ring call centres, they just talk to their broker, the broker lets us know and we will resolve any issues that they may have after the deal is settled."
The group's current structure stratifies brokers according to loan volumes, with three levels - 'flame', 'gold' and 'silver', with all receiving similar service, though some levels are prioritised.
Speaking with Australian Broker, PFS Financial Services mortgage broker Daniel O'Brien, who is a St. George 'flame' broker and was Australian Mortgage Awards Broker of the Year in 2008, said St. George's service via Mortgage Central is currently "second to none" in the banking market.
Latest Comments
Total:
9
comment(s)
Pardon Me broker on
27 Aug 2010 09:58 AM
WOW a bank that actually understands that Brokers are really a great resource and a lower cost option than retail branches to source loans and have set up a way to give some good service. They will increase market share from brokers and they deserve to do that.
St George Gold Broker on
27 Aug 2010 03:18 PM
An perfect example of "spin doctoring and propaganda" The St George marketing department couldn''t have done a better job if they had written the article themselves. I''ve been referring loans to St George for abount 5 years and am currently ranked as a gold broker. While I''m happy to conceed that information from loan sceniarios through Mortgage Central has "improved" in comparrison to 2 years ago, time on hold waiting to speak to a (Diploma Qualified!!!!) staff member often exceeds 10 minutes. The loan processing service via Mortgage Central is far from "second to none". In particular loan processing is often extreemly tardy and overly officious, individuals do not take responsibility for a particular file, brokers are rarely able to discuss complcated issues direct with the person assessing a file and are forced to relay on a (less qualified) 3rd party to pass on relavent points via
"shorthand jargonese" file notes. These bureaucrts rarely return calls, respond to emails, are bereft of english writing skills, incapable of reading supporting notes and are yet to develop the skill of exercising independant thought.
The ONLY reason I continue to write St George mortgages is that their retail branch staf are generally EXCELLENT.
Andrew on
27 Aug 2010 07:00 PM
I consider St George one of the very last resort because of the absolute useless service I receive and the amount of time I waste on every deal I write to St George. I inform all of my clients that wish to (or need to) go to St George of the bumpy ride they''re about to go through. I spend significantly more time on St George deals than on average, and get paid less for it.
This article reeks of copy/paste from a St George press release.
Dave on
30 Aug 2010 01:27 PM
Used to be good but they lost most of the good BDM''s and the replacements aren''t very good at all. Caught mine out telling lie''s and now he doesn''t want to deal with me. Gone from a Platinum broker to normal (can''t wear my tights with a cape anymore!) and haven''t missed them at all. I think the training has had to go into the back office as they recruited so badly at BDM level.
JB on
31 Aug 2010 09:42 AM
Does St George have BDM''s? What are their strengths - fast processing, easy to get approved, deal directly with credit assessment???
KT on
31 Aug 2010 01:11 PM
I have had similar problems with St George myself. They don''t reply to emails, have to wait over 10 mins when put on hold over the phone with the Mortgage Central hotline and my client files gets thrown from one Credit Assessor to another......and the most frustrating is their online software looks very similar to the Homeside software, but St George is much harder to use and require much more meaningless fields to be completed (in order to achieve validation to submit) than Homeside''s version of this software.
Another Gold Broker on
31 Aug 2010 03:25 PM
Agree with all of the above. Used to be a gold broker as well but new BDM would not go out of his way to support a perfectly good deal. Told him I could not support a bank that did not support me so was told "No problem we will demote you to a silver broker". Have not heard from him since. A bank''s value is only as good as the support. St George obviously knows this but instead of doing something about it all they do is spin.
Spinner on
01 Sep 2010 11:40 PM
Yes - agree with all.
St George were the "go to" bank 2-5 years ago. They delivered. As a gold broker I could see the flame. Then, the organisation became "angry". Thats the word that came to mind. Maybe the dragon smoked itself! For all the reasons mentioned in the comments. Would love them to hop back in the ring, but only sending SMSF loans their way for now.
Unhappy Dragon on
07 Sep 2010 11:17 AM
Good to see St George are focusing on loan scenarios & post settlement care. But what about the all important credit process? I''ve had an application with them for the past 5 weeks. Its now been allocated to a different assessor 3 times & has been assessed by a senior lender twice & they keep coming back asking for something different. I tried to discuss the situation with a BDM & all he wanted to do was complain that I actually had his mobile number. After 3 weeks I submitted the deal to another lender & had full approval within 7 days. The last thing I heard from St George was that the application needed to be resubmitted if THEY havent verbally confirmed employent within 5 days. What a joke!!!!