Revealed: Best of the non-banks 2017

Speaking to The Adviser, Assetline’s co-founder and executive director Nick Raphaely said he was particularly proud of being “reasonable and commercial”.

He said: “I think brokers still feel like Assetline is a place that they can go where they’re comfortable with the people that they speak to, the people deliver on their promises, and if they can’t help, they’ll tell you straight off that they can’t do it — they don’t change their word at the last minute or let you down. I think doing all these things has really helped the business to grow.”

Commercial property finance specialist Thinktank moved up one place this year to take the title of Best Commercial Lender. Jonathan Street, Thinktank’s co-founder and CEO, commented: “It is wonderful to receive this sort of independent recognition for the sort of business we do and the relationships we have across so many brokers, and we are very appreciative for such a resounding vote of support from the industry.

“We’ve spent a good deal of time working closely with our aggregators to deliver meaningful training, mentoring and upskilling to their broker members who feel they can benefit from what we can offer, and thereby assist them to grow their business and revenues.”

Non-conforming specialist Bluestone Mortgages was recognised by brokers for its product and service offering. 

Campbell Smyth, CEO at Bluestone Mortgages, commented: “The recent win is significant. It reflects our complete focus on specialist lending, and efforts to provide brokers with solutions designed to assist and benefit more customers, especially self-employed borrowers. We also greatly appreciate the award methodology, which was entirely based on broker votes – the very people we work with and support on a daily basis, and arguably who are best positioned to evaluate our performance.”

Mr Smyth attributed the success of the company to a focus on supporting the SME sector and its expansion of its BDM team.

NLG Leasing, which provides outsourced asset finance aggregation and referral services for financial services professionals, came out top of the crop in the Equipment, Leasing and Business Finance category of non-bank lenders.

“The NLG Leasing team were completely thrilled to win the Best Equipment, Leasing and Business Finance category in the recent awards for the second year in a row,” said Frank Crombie, director of aggregator services, NLG Leasing.

“Asset and equipment finance continues to be a growth sector and the obvious area for diversification. It provides an alternate revenue stream, increases a broker’s value proposition and aids client retention by creating deeper and ‘stickier’ relationships,” he said.

Despite being a relative newcomer to the lending scene, three-year-old company Moula has made its mark in brokers’ minds through its cash flow and debtor finance offerings. 

Aris Allegos, co-founder and CEO, said: “For us, we tried to provide a product to market that is a trusted and responsible lending solution and one that brokers specifically can offer alongside their more traditional lending products. I think the two things that resonate are the transparency and speed of loans. Transparency means that they know they are getting a price that is commercial and through a lending platform that they can trust. And, getting funding into a somewhat convoluted trust structure within 24 hours is something that typically floors brokers and customers at the same time.

“We have massive customer advocacy because of the turnaround times. We’ve worked really hard to ensure that our product has been built with respect, and to win an award like this is a reflection of the effort that we put into that.”

For the mortgage manager competitive set, Mortgage Ezy came out top. 

Mortgage Ezy CEO Peter James commented: "To be voted as Australia’s number 1 Mortgage Manager is not something we take lightly!

"We have been able to achieve these results by building genuine partnerships with our brokers, offering them more than just lip service with choices unmatched in the market place, along with our traditional loud and proud marketing campaigns, lightning speed turnaround times and a determination to offer the very best service to our brokers and customers."

Between 28 November 2016 and 23 December 2016, Momentum Intelligence asked brokers to rate the non-bank lenders they had written business with over the last 12 months across eight key metrics.

Survey responses were carefully assessed, measured and validated through statistical data analysis (SPSS) by an external market research professional, resulting in a total usable sample of 591 brokers.

The full rankings in each competitive set and the underlying research data is available for purchase through Andy Scott at Momentum Intelligence.