TMBL loan book grows 10% in a year

Teachers Mutual Bank Limited (comprising Teachers Mutual Bank, Firefighters Mutual Bank, Health Professionals Bank, UniBank and digital bank Hiver) has announced its financial performances for the financial year ended June 2022 (FY22), revealing loan book, membership and profit growth.

According to the banking group, its home loan balances rose by 9.9 per cent over the year, to $8.5 billion. More than $6.7 billion of this was for owner-occupied loans, with $1.7 billion for investor loans.

It stated that the mortgage growth was driven through both first-party loan origination and “strong growth” through the broker channel.

Speaking to Mortgage Business, TMBL head of third-party distribution Mark Middleton noted that brokers continue to be the “predominant channel for the organisation”, with 62 per cent of new business coming from the channel in FY22.

In total, 48 per cent of TMBL’s loan portfolio is broker-introduced, which Mr Middelton flagged was notable given the lender’s initial entry into the third-party channel was just eight years ago.

“Consumers are turning to the broker channel to solve their finance requirements when looking for a home or investment,” Mr Middleton said.

“Owner-occupied loans, in particular, are the first port of call for brokers using TMBL,” noting that more investor loans were also starting to be written.

Looking at the types of loans being written, the head of third party noted that fixed rates had “certainly come off” in the last six months as rate rises began. He revealed that while around 90 per cent of new business written by the banking group in FY21 was for fixed-rate loans, this had now inverted to variable rates, with just 15 per cent of new loans now being fixed.

First home buyer activity and refinances also continued to drive lending growth.

TMBL noted that one of its brands, UniBank, surpassed $2 billion in home loan assets over the year and helped contribute to the group achieving above-system growth of 8 per cent. The mutual banking group has now reportedly achieved 22 years of above-system growth.

As well as growing its mortgage book, TMBL’s financial performance update showed that its total assets grew 7 per cent over FY22, rising to $10.4 billion.

The downward trend in bad debts written off continued, recording a reduction on FY21 to $765,000 in FY22, which the bank said was reflective of its “risk appetite and prudent approach to managing its lending book”.

Retail deposits increased by $468 million to 30 June 2022 and membership grew to 230,344 nationally, over the year. Member numbers were bolstered by the group’s mergers and acquisitions, including that of Pulse Credit Union Limited last year, which brought in around 6,00 of the 9,460 new members.

Overall, the banking group saw a net profit after tax of $30.4 million, an 8 per cent increase on the prior year. 

Speaking of the results, TMBL chief executive Steve James said: “FY22 has been a noteworthy year for many reasons. As we continued to manage the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, our people demonstrated their resilience, agility and sense of community, continuing to operate to our high standards and put our members at the heart of everything they do.

“Being a mutual means our success is our members’ success; our profits will always go towards meeting our members’ evolving needs.

“This past financial year we have again shown that Teachers Mutual Bank Limited has the determined focus to best support our growing national membership.”

[Related: Teachers Mutual pushes through $10bn ceiling]