Spotlight: rising above and beyond with Sam Boer

We’ve had a great year. We hit the ground running in 2015 with a strong broker proposition and a simple, clear purpose: to make it easier for brokers to do business with us and to provide market-leading relationships
that enhance brokers’ reputations.

We told brokers they could count on us to help them deliver.

What support measures does CBA currently have available to mortgage brokers?

We understand how important a broker’s reputation is and it’s our mission to provide great products, clear and simple policies and processes, answers when brokers need them and support at every stage.

A strong support model for brokers is critical to their business; this is why we increased and reinforced our support team across the country – more relationship managers with direct access to local credit managers, a new team of desk-based relationship managers, and access to our knowledgeable Broker Assist team for help with loan structuring, scenarios, advice and help with credit policy.

From your perspective, how can brokers best utilise the process CBA has in place?

We’re committed to delivering a simple and easy home loan experience for brokers and we continuously review our end-to-end process to ensure that we are able to provide a consistent, reliable service.

The fast track process that we launched earlier this year has been delivering some great outcomes for brokers and [their] customers. We’re providing an answer within 24 hours for deals that meet our fast track simple home loan criteria.

We’ve now started to roll out a new national processing support model, which is based on deal complexity. The new model will provide faster service for the simpler deals, and a more robust process for assessing deals that are more complex.

This has already reduced refer-backs and delivered faster turnaround times for more brokers, which creates great outcomes for more customers.

My advice to brokers is to always take a little more time gathering the appropriate information from the client and ensure that our requirements are met before submitting the deal. Brokers who provide us with the right supporting documentation upfront will experience a fast and smooth process – it’s that simple.

Deal quality should be a focus and part of the operating rhythm for all broker businesses. We still see a lot of applications that are unnecessarily delayed because they’re missing simple pieces of supporting documentation.

How has CBA managed to effectively tackle the regulatory changes made by APRA this year?

This year hasn’t been without its challenges and changes, but that’s what makes our industry such an exciting one to be in – change brings opportunity.

As we have come to expect, competition among lenders has been fierce, and with the real estate market growing – especially in Sydney and Melbourne – opportunity for brokers has been abundant [and] many broker businesses are flourishing and growing.

We made a number of changes to our credit policies back in June, and we continue to monitor our investor book to ensure that we’re maintaining prudent lending standards and meeting our customers’ financial needs.

Our relationship managers and Broker Assist team are happy to guide brokers through scenarios and deal structuring within those new policies, and we will continue to listen to broker feedback.

How important do you think it is it to keep your service proposition up to date?

We understand that there is a lot of information that brokers need to understand and retain with regard to credit policy and the recent changes that have been made across the industry. It’s not easy for them to keep up to date in this rapidly changing environment.

I want to encourage brokers to take the time to review our credit policy; they may be pleasantly surprised.

Our credit policy is clearly detailed on the CommBroker website; alternatively, brokers can speak with Broker Assist or to their relationship manager to find out how we can help them deliver to their investor clients.

In terms of product pricing, how vital is it for CBA to have a broad range of competitive options available?

Our Home Loan Pricing Tool is the best in the market; brokers need to be using it as part of their standard operating procedure.

It’s a dynamic tool that provides an answer immediately, and the rates can change on a daily basis, so brokers who aren’t using the Home Loan Pricing Tool are missing out on some great discretionary pricing for their customers.

We are always working hard behind the scenes to continue to deliver great offers for customers.

In September this year, we announced a great new three-year rate saver offer at 4.19 per cent per annum for owner-occupiers with $0 establishment fee and $0 loan service fee for the life of the loan. We’re also closely monitoring and reviewing our fixed rates to ensure that we’re offering sharp, competitive rates.

With the technology boom in full swing, how is CBA keeping up with demand and what is being done to continue this into the future?

CommBank is known for its technology, and we will continue to invest in digital advancements to make it easier for brokers to do business with us.

We have been gradually rolling out our Simply Print functionality, which allows brokers to download and print loan offer documents in their office.

This delivers quicker turnaround times, reduces wait times and reliance on postage, and provides a secure platform for accessing the documents. To facilitate moving into the next phase of this roll-out, we are working on a solution that will allow us to deliver the supporting electronic terms and conditions directly to the customer, removing the need for brokers to keep hard copies in their office.