AFG grows loan book to $114 billion

AFG managing director Brett McKeon said the results reflect the positive growth in the group’s residential and commercial businesses.

“AFG’s loan book is currently sitting at $114 billion,” Mr McKeon said.

“Our core residential and commercial businesses both posted solid growth on the same period in 2015, and the higher margin AFG Home Loans business contributed $2.4 million profit before tax in HY16,” he said.

“Residential settlements for the first half of 2016 were $17.7 billion, which is 16 per cent up on the corresponding period last year.”

AFG’s commercial business also performed well with $1.4 billion in settlements, up 35 per cent on the first half of 2015.

Mr McKeon said the aggregator’s continued recruitment of top-performing brokers across the country is “testament to our key strategy of delivering market leading technology and support to our geographically-diverse network.”

NSW retains the largest share of AFG’s residential loan book at 27 per cent, followed by Queensland (24 per cent), Victoria (22 per cent), WA (21 per cent) and South Australia (6 per cent).

“The past five years has seen consistent growth in both residential and commercial settlements, particularly in the country’s biggest markets – New South Wales and Victoria,” Mr McKeon said.

“Strong growth in the AFG Home Loans business was aided by improved margins with the AFG Securities business and good growth with the AFG Home Loans products,” he said.

The AFG Home Loans Edge product recorded $673 million in settlements over the first six months of the 2016 financial year, up from $460 million in FY15.

The group’s newly-branded white-label offering, AFG Home Loans Icon, which launched in October last year, has seen $104 million in settlements to 15 February.

[Related: AFG launches new white-label offering]