Mortgage industry veteran Huw Bough to retire

Huw Bough, the general manager of banking at MyState Bank, has announced he will step down from his position at the Tasmania-based lender on Friday (9 June) and retire from full-time work.

Tim Newman, MyState Bank’s head of business transformation, will take on the role of general manager, lending from next week — with Mr Bough handing over to him over the next few months, after which time he will head to France for the Rugby World Cup and spend his retirement travelling.

An advocate for the broker channel

Mr Bough has held several senior roles in the Australian mortgage industry over his career and has been a strong advocate of the mortgage broking industry.

For the past two years, he has been GM of banking at MyState Bank, tasked with building growth in MyState’s retail banking and broker divisions, with a particular focus on strengthening the bank’s broker service proposition including loan approval turnarounds.

He rejoined the bank in 2021 after having previously held positions as the group’s general manager of sales and distribution, driving strategy for both direct and broker channels across the group’s retail banking brands The Rock, MyState Financial and MyState Wealth Management.

Before joining the Tasmania-based lender, Mr Bough had a decade-long career at the Westpac Group, having served in leadership positions including as Westpac’s general manager, mortgage broker distribution (2008–11) and general manager, franchisee business for RAMS Financial Group (2011–14). He was also the head of broker sales at RAMS Home Loans between 2005 and 2008.

However, Mr Bough first entered the mortgage industry in 1998, when he started his own mortgage brokerage based in Melbourne, Australian Home Finance Solutions, which went on to become Citi Bank’s largest mortgage introducer in Victoria.

Prior to his career in banking, Mr Bough worked at Encyclopedia Britannica for two decades, having worked up the ranks to senior management. This followed a career in trading on the stock market in the UK.

‘A legacy Huw can be proud of’

Speaking to Mortgage Business about his decision to retire, Mr Bough said that now was a good time to retire, adding: “One of the motivating factors behind my retirement was that we’ve got a really good succession plan.

“When you get to a certain age, you can see retirement coming and you want to be able to feel like you’ve left the business in a better place and that the person coming in will be as good, or even better, than you. Especially when it comes to making a difference.

“I certainly feel that we’ve got that with Tim Newman, who I’ve been working alongside for the past 15 months as he transforms the business.

“With him in the role, he’ll be able to continue on the growth strategy that we’ve put into place.”

Mr Bough said he felt privileged to have helped build MyState Bank from “a small Tasmanian bank that no one had really heard of” to a lender that has 70 per cent of its loan book outside of Tasmania.

He commented: “We couldn’t have built the businesses as we have done without the broker channel, the right technology, and the right values and purpose.

“As a smaller bank, we’re driven by purpose and values, which aligns with the broker experience, because brokers are driven by the customer.

“I’m thrilled that over the last two years, we’ve grown the portfolio by 40 per cent and we were number one on broker experience for turnaround times among the non-major banks in the most recent Broker Pulse survey.

“To have had the right team to deliver on that has been quite fulfilling.”

The chief executive of MyState Bank, Brett Morgan, commented: “Huw has had an enormous and enduring impact on MyState Bank.

“Under Huw’s leadership, our lending and deposit businesses have grown from strength to strength.

“MyState Bank is well placed to continue to deliver on our growth ambitions and that is a large part due to the expertise, professionalism and dedication of Huw.

“Importantly, Huw has led from the heart, bringing a genuine passion and care for customers and staff. These qualities will endure, which will serve as a legacy that Huw can always be proud of and, of course, will ensure we continue to serve our customers well too.”

Reflecting on his career in the mortgage space more generally, Mr Bough said that he will fondly remember the long-lasting relationships and partnerships he has formed over the years and hoped he would be remembered for championing the value of the mortgage broker channel.

“I know that brokers are passionate about customers. When I first started [in banking], we had a myth-buster where we used to identify all of the myths that existed around the broker channel. With facts, we were able to dispel those myths and create some really strong advocacy and I’ve carried that across every brand I've worked with,” he said.

“I think lenders are passionate about customers as well, so it was about making sure everybody was on the same page in that regard.”

[Related: MyState MD confirms departure after COVID delay]