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A non-major has announced the withdrawal of an investment product due to “low demand” from customers.
ING has announced that it will no longer offer an “Interest in Advance” option for its investment home loan customers.
The option enabled investors with interest-only terms to fix their rate for a 12-month period and pay down their annual interest repayments – typically incurred throughout the year – in one upfront payment.
The lender told The Adviser that the product has been withdrawn because of “low demand” from its existing investor mortgage customers, who, according to the latest statistics from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), make up 18.2 per cent of the bank’s total portfolio.
ING has said that it will contact Interest in Advance customers 30 days before their current term expires to remind them that they will not be able to access the Interest in Advance feature moving forward.
Turnaround times fall but broker share slips
Meanwhile, in the same note to brokers, ING noted an improvement in its turnaround times for home loan applications.
According to the lender, its turnaround times have been reduced to within two business days from submission date to credit assessment decision.
This comes amid data from research group Momentum Intelligence, which has highlighted the competitive utility of short turnaround times in the broker channel.
However, according to the latest mortgage and competition index from the Australian Finance Group, ING’s share of broker lodgements fell over the December quarter, from 3.6 per cent to 2.9 per cent.
Despite the decline in ING’s share of the broker channel over the quarter, the bank retains the second largest share of broker lodgements among independent non-majors, behind only Macquarie (10.2 per cent).
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