Major bank
Westpac has injected an additional $5m of funds into uno Home Loans, a fintech which gives customers direct access to loan comparison technology and a team of home loan advisers.
The investment means Westpac has put a total of $26.5m into a firm that links clients to mortgages without the need for a broker. The bank now owns 92% of shares in uno. However, this drops down to around 75% when factoring in shares that are subject to vesting.
The additional funds would be used to invest in more efficient technology for uno's advisers, the firm's CEO and founder Vincent Turner told
Australian Broker.
“The vision for the advisers who work for us is that they shouldn't have to go into any other platform to be able to get a decision for a customer or to manage the process for a customer.”
The aim was to out do the typical setup that brokers used with multiple platforms, excel spreadsheets and various browser tabs all open at once, a focus which had attracted more advisers to the firm, he added.
“It's a great differentiator in mortgages generally for the bank or broker.”
A Westpac spokesperson told
Australian Broker the bank had confidence in uno's customer proposition and was supportive of customers having a range of options when seeking a mortgage.
“We believe brokers provide an excellent service to customers and remain a key part of the competitive landscape. We see uno as providing further choice for customers in researching and securing a home loan.”
Turner reiterated that although there were a growing number of customers seeking a digital option,
uno was not there to replace brokers.
“You don't have to have someone come to your home or go somewhere but some customers still want that. If you still want to sit with someone and point at stuff or whatever it is people do when sitting with someone, then that's just not us.”
Simply put, uno had been built on the idea that customers could receive great deals on their home loans through access to the same technology that banks and brokers use, Turner said.
The company had grown exponentially during its first financial year, advising customers on more than $1.3bn of home loans through its platform.
“We have grown the number of brands on our panel to 21, are doing six times more monthly applications than we were this time last year and have doubled our number of frontline staff over the past 12 months.”
The team is currently sitting at 18 staff with two more joining over the next few months, he said, adding that this growth trajectory was expected in the future.
“Regardless of what market conditions do, there's lots of upside from our perspective. It's a huge market.”
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