Online mortgage broker E-Loan New Zealand is set to add more lenders to the 18 already hooked in to its web-site, providing further choice for borrowers shopping for a loan.
Chief executive Bruce Gordon says an announcement about the new mortgage lenders will be made shortly, as their details were currently being loaded into the system. As E-Loan has only been operating here since mid June "we see this as a great endorsement to the model".
Gordon won't confirm the number of loan applications approved so far, saying that it's sensitive information. However, the firm admits to receiving some 150 applications for a total $23 million in its first five weeks, it hit a global first for E-Loan for closing its first applications, and Gordon says it's getting 400 visitors to the website daily with many staying relatively long periods of time.
That's after a slow start for its counterpart across the Tasman, although Gordon says recent figures for E-Loan Australia show much stronger results. One reason: the Aussie banks can take a couple of months to process loans compared with a week or two here, which distorted early figures.
So why are we so keen to go online to look for a mortgage? Well, Gordon thinks it's that Kiwi aptitude for technology (we tend to be early adaptors of things like eftpos, electronic banking, the Internet and so on).
"Also, all the major New Zealand banks offer Internet banking and that's not always the case in every market," he says.
"I think New Zealanders just get it."
Gordon also stresses the impartiality of E-Loan's loan consultants who, unlike many mortgage brokers, get a salary and flat-rate performance bonus and so have no financial incentive to put borrowers with lenders offering them a higher commission.
"Where we think E-Loan is unique in New Zealand is that we're audited by and warranted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers to ensure that our software and loan consultants are completely independent of the commission process."
