The bank reported its half-year results yesterday that showed overall a 5% drop in half-year cash profit to $841 million compared to the corresponding period last year.
Statutory profit, which includes economic hedging gains and insurance asset valuations, lifted 3% to a record $877 million.
ANZ said that fall in cash profit was down as the result in the prior comparable period included a high level of provision write-backs and a one-off insurance recovery.
The bank’s home loan market share increased from 31.0% to 31.2% in the 12 months and it is up from 30.6% two years ago. ANZ continues to hold the number one spot in Auckland and Christchurch as measured by the share of total home loans registered in each region.
Currently 27% of its home loan book is on variable rates and 73% is on fixed rates.
One of the big changes in the home loan space is that there has been a significant increase in home loans sold through the broker channel in the past two years. ANZ says that brokers accounted for 32% of loans in the first half two years ago but in the latest reporting period their share of business had increased to 38% at the expense of ANZ’s mobile mortgage managers.
Their share of business has fallen from 17% of loans written to 12%. Retail, or branches, was steady at 29% as was small business banking which continues to sit at 22% of loans written.
ANZ currently pays a high up front commission of 0.85% (and up to 0.95% in some cases) to brokers. ANZ New Zealand chief executive David Hisco didn’t think this payment level was driving business.
He said commission structures to brokers vary “and they all have their pros and cons.”
He said Westpac’s move to a trail commission model “hasn’t hurt us at all.”
When asked if ANZ will introduce trail commissions, Hisco said: “No we just do what we do.”
“We’ve got a pretty big share of the broker game so we’re comfortable with how we are going and doing what we are doing.”
Hisco said he wasn’t aware of any complaints around loan application turn around times.
“I haven’t heard any complaints about ANZ,” he said. “I suppose when you process the number of home loans we do there will always be one complaint.”
“Generally the feedback I get is that people are generally happy with our turn around times,” Hisco said.
