Ian Rakhit: Driving Ambition

Bankwest head of broker sales Ian Rakhit has been busily strengthening the bank's broker proposition in line with some ambitious goals. He tells MPA what brokers can expect

Ian RakhitBankwest head of broker sales Ian Rakhit has been busily strengthening the bank's broker proposition in line with some ambitious goals. He tells MPA what brokers can expect

MPA: How do you see the property market performing during the second half of the year?

Ian Rakhit: I suspect that growth in prices and transactions will continue, although we may be seeing a slowing of growth in a couple of sectors.

MPA: Are there any regions or buyer types that are particularly active at the moment?

IR: Bankwest is benefiting from growth in the investor market, particularly from ‘mum and dad’ investors who already own their occupied property and are using equity or cash to invest. The largest growth here for Bankwest has been in NSW.

First home buyers are still strong in every state, and we continue to enjoy a great demand from these buyers.

MPA: What are Bankwest’s main areas of focus in the broker market for the rest of the year and beyond?

IR: Bankwest intends to remain the largest lender of retail home loans to the broker market, excluding the big four. We will achieve this through a variety of people, price, product, process and policy initiatives.

As always, brokers will be asked frequently to offer feedback on where Bankwest performs strongly and where we can improve. It is this open and honest partnership which continues to help Bankwest perform strongly.

MPA: What kind of feedback have you been receiving from brokers on Bankwest’s services recently? Have you made any changes based on this feedback?

IR: Brokers like the responsiveness and quality of our people. They also appreciate the timeliness of our update processes. To further strengthen our relationship with brokers, we are increasing our numbers of desk-based BDM support to ensure brokers have a local contact to help get their deals to approval and settlement.

Brokers also like our speed of updates so we’ve continually enhanced our Webchat service, allowing broker updates over the web in a very short amount of time.

MPA: Do you have any new products or services in the pipeline that you’d like to make brokers aware of?

IR: The recent Bankwest Complete Home Loan is performing strongly, accounting for one third of all new sales. This product is suited to both investors and owner-occupiers and has helped Bankwest succeed in lending to those customers with larger deposits or larger equities in their properties.

Bankwest is also pleased to be involved in the early rollout of digital property settlements, often referred to as e-conveyancing.

MPA: You mentioned in last year’s Banks on Brokers interview that you would be focusing on improving your web presence and direct document upload. How have these issues progressed this year?

IR: Bankwest continues to focus on these areas and we are constantly improving our presence and processes.

MPA: What do you think are the key issues brokers are facing at the moment that are proving to be a barrier to growth in their businesses?

IR: Brokers are enjoying the growing market and the only barrier I occasionally hear of is not having enough hours in the day to keep on top of their workload!
 
BROKER TIPS

Rakhit offers his top three tips to brokers for submitting clean applications, and improving conversion rates and turnaround speeds 

To help achieve a ‘right first time’ application, Bankwest would advise brokers to:
  • follow the checklist provided
  • ring our credit team if your customer cannot provide the documents we require
  • utilise Bankwest Webchat to get progress updates


MPA: Are there any areas outside of residential home loans that you think brokers would do well to diversify into?

IR: I hear a number of head groups are focusing their brokers on a wider range of lending, while others are helping their brokers to offer a full financial review, including health and wealth opportunities.

I welcome all approaches to diversification, providing the broker feels it’s right for their business.

MPA: Are there any other key messages you’d like to pass on to brokers?

IR: Bankwest enjoys the highest volume of broker business of any lender, excluding the big four. We view this as a privilege to be enjoyed, but we guard against complacency and want to continually improve.

Personally, I’d like to thank all our broker partners for their ongoing support.


This feature is lifted from Mortgage Professional's July 2014 issue. Download to read more!