Inside CBA’s broker strategy

Q. How do you see the role of a broker changing and evolving?

Customers’ needs are becoming more complex. My personal view is that this is where brokers thrive. They thrive because they deeply understand their customer, and they understand their customer today and what their aspirations are for the future, too. They can then look at the income complexity and the nuances around security and serviceability.

Where brokers are adding real value is by paying attention to that customer and creating solutions for them. We have a part to play in that, making sure that we are providing brokers with the latest insights on market intelligence and policy.

Q. How has broker feedback shaped the changes made over the past 12–24 months?

We’re very passionate about delivering the best experience for customers and brokers. So, we take on board feedback on what we are doing well, what we could do differently and better, and we pass that into the broader ecosystem of the bank. This is particularly the case when it comes to product and technology – what can make a customer’s life easier and simpler and what can make doing business with us easier and simpler for a broker?

Q. What does CBA’s broker strategy look like at the moment?

Our intention is always to grow with quality brokers. I’m seeing brokerages expand, attract talent, and grow. I’m seeing the structure of broker businesses become more complex and scalable. Our intention is to make sure we identify the brokers that are high-quality, highly productive, and want to do business with us.

Q. How do you activate and engage with high-value brokers?

We have our Essential tier, our Elite tier, and our Platinum tier. From a customer point of view, regardless of their broker’s tier, there is still the Commonwealth Bank experience.

If you lodge a loan with the bank, the SLAs are clear. You’re still getting the experience of credit and operations to deliver excellence for that customer. But as we move into the higher tiering, into Elite and into Platinum, we provide extra value into your business.

Quality matters. It creates a great experience for the broker and a great experience for the customer
– Michael Piper, national broker sales lead, CBA

Q. How does a broker go through the tiers? Is it purely based on volume?

It’s a very deliberate quality overlay. When we’re doing business with highly productive brokers, brokers that are delivering excellence for customers, quality is important – the packaging of the transaction, making sure that all items are there, and that we’re able to complete the assessment first time. You lodge the loan, we pick it up, we see everything’s there – clear notes, great quality – and we approve the deal. That’s a great experience for the broker, and it’s a great experience for the customer. It’s something we’re really passionate about. So, quality matters.

Q. As we move into a new financial year, what are CBA’s areas of focus?

What I’m encouraging all of our leaders and our relationship managers to do is to be deeply connected to our brokers.

It has to be an engagement piece that’s ongoing because what they were thinking four months ago won’t be what they’re thinking today.

We want to be staying connected in a way that we are not just supporting in the transaction, but supporting the evolution of what they’re seeing in their business for their customer base.

Q. When you look at opportunities for brokers and lenders to work more effectively together over the next few years, what do you hope to see?

When I talk to a lot of brokers, they’re very clear on the strategy they’re setting up for individual customers inside their business. That’s really important for us to understand.

The evolution of any engagement should be openness, transparency, and sharing of ideas and understanding what’s driving the growth and the aspirations of that broker and their business and their customer base. The better we know that, the better we can provide tailored responses.

Recent market shifts have highlighted the real importance of being able to understand what a broker was thinking about three months ago versus what they are today – being able to adapt, use commercial acumen, and understanding where we can add value in that collaboration based on what the broker’s seeing in their customer conversations in their business today.