AMP Bank focuses investment on broker channel

The bank’s new director of distribution, Adrienne Smith, has reaffirmed the lender’s commitment to the channel, stating that the bank has been making “focused enhancements which are all about assisting the critically important broker and adviser channels and helping improve customer outcomes”.

Speaking to The Adviser, Ms Smith said that her first few months in the role had left her with “very good first impressions”, particularly that the bank was “really focused on great customer outcomes and working very closely with brokers and advisers to get those great customer outcomes”.

Ms Smith noted that the investments so far this year include, among other solutions, the creation of new end-to-end loan processing teams to increase speed and reduce errors in loan processing and increased servicing from credit analysts.

The director of distribution told The Adviser: “Earlier in the year, we did experience some issues with turnaround times, so we are continually reviewing our processes and working with the teams.

“As part of that new, end-to-end loan processing, the operations team are very close to the credit team so that the full process — from the time an application is touched right through to settlement — is handled within those teams. So, what we have been focused on is basically increasing the speed and reducing the errors, and that is important for us.”

Ms Smith added that the bank had boosted its broker and support team by six in the past year, including Rachael Warne a new BDM in WA and Bill Amarantos as a BDM in Victoria. 

She continued: “We’ve also increased servicing from the credit analysts and made that service from the credit analysts more personalised. So, brokers and advisers will quite often hear from a credit analyst via the phone as opposed to just an email [and system alerts]. I think it is important in making that service more personalised and speeding it up and resolving what is required to move that application through the process more quickly.” 

Looking forward, AMP Bank’s director of distribution said that the lender would continue to host its “special workshops” over the year “to give brokers and advisers the information they need to support their customers and continue to get that great outcome”.

Ms Smith concluded: “We’re a virtual, branchless bank so our focus is very much on broker and adviser partnerships.

“We’re listening to feedback from our intermediaries, and we know we have more work to do, but these measures are a step towards enhancing the experience for brokers, advisers and customers. And we are focused on growth. We have less than 1 per cent market share, so there is significant potential for us for future growth.

“We have competitive products and we continue to work on providing consistent service and we are a branchless bank. So, we are very much focused on brokers and advisers and that is where our investment is going.”

[Related: AMP adds billions to book despite ‘intense’ mortgage market]