CUA to offer home loans via Mortgage Choice and Smartline brokers

Mortgage Choice and Smartline mortgage brokers will be able to offer their clients home loan products from Credit Union Australia (CUA) from March 1 following the lender’s decision to return to the third-party distribution market. 

CUA quit the broker space in mid-2008 in the wake of the GFC due to the increasing costs of sourcing mortgage funding. 

Before the GFC, the CUA was an active player in the broker space, writing about 30% of its mortgages via this distribution channel. 

Darrin Northey, CUA’s group general manager for distribution, says the credit union had been looking to re-engage with the broker network for some time. 

He believes the move will help ensure its home loans are even more widely available to customers and available in the same space as products from the major banks. 

“Given around one in four homebuyers seeks out a home loan via a broker, CUA’s re-entry into the network means we will be expanding the reach of our products to a greater potential audience,” he says. 

“We have been planning our re-entry into the broker network for some time and are confident that now is the right time, with the right commercial terms, for us to make that move. 

CUA was one of the few lenders to leave their standard variable rate unchanged in February after the ANZ’s rate rise sparked most lenders to raise their rates outside of the RBA cycle. 

CUA currently offers a standard variable rate of 6.72%, which is 0.59% lower than the 7.31% offered by NAB, the cheapest of the big four banks.

In its 2011 annual results, CUA revealed it had total assets under management of $9 billion, up $860 million since June last year.