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Non-major Bank of Queensland Limited (BOQ) has sent out a statement to its brokers that it will “pause” new home loan acquisitions via the broker channel from 31 August 2024, with applications being accepted until 30 August.
BOQ informed that existing customers will continue to receive full support, including all new lending.
In the statement, BOQ said the change aligns with its “ongoing efforts to strengthen and optimising the bank in response to market conditions” and has provided brokers with support measures should they have any queries or need more information.
In a statement to Broker Daily, a BOQ spokesperson said: “We can confirm this is a pause for new-to-bank BOQ brand home loan customers via the broker channel only, this is not an exit.
“ME [Bank’s] broker channel will continue uninterrupted, as will the BOQ branded proprietary channels.”
Speaking to Broker Daily, principal finance broker at Unconditional Finance, Chris Raymond, said he believes that this pause will have “a negative impact” on BOQ’s business going forward.
“The lack of notice will affect a lot of brokers that have included BOQ in their proposals and potentially started prepping deals for lodgement but are waiting on clients to provide documents,” Raymond said.
“I understand the thought path behind pausing business to make process and system improvements however, given they informed brokers of this change at the 11th hour it will take a long time to restore market confidence back within the broker channel when they return in my opinion.”
However, branch principal and mortgage broker at Yellow Brick Road Earlwood, Effie Nicol, told Broker Daily that this pause presents opportunities for brokers, along with its challenges.
“While this limits immediate product offerings for customers, the Bank’s commitment to assessing customer needs and market conditions suggests a focus on future innovation,” Nicol said.
“Improving processing times and enhancing digital platforms is essential for a better broker and customer experience.
“BOQ’s emphasis on technology upgrades is a positive step towards achieving more efficient processes, which will ultimately benefit everyone when they return to the market.”
Niti Bhargava, founder and principal broker of GB Financiials, told Broker Daily: "Sometimes to make a big jump, little breaks are required."
"If as mentioned by the bank officials, this is part of their digital transformation and restructuring for the better processes in future, then this would be good step.
"I think brokers with existing applications will still have support, but for new applications, [the] ME brand is there, so there is definitely another option for the brokers.
"This industry is quite resilient to any changes and this might be a temporary pause...," she said.
As a result of this pause, over 12,000 brokers accredited with BOQ will not be able to offer the non-major bank’s branded mortgages to new clients from the end of August.
The move to pause new home loan applications through the broker channel comes as BOQ announced 400 job cuts last week (21 August), which brought total redundancies in the last 12 months to 650.
The bank confirmed that it plans to convert all 114 of its owner managed branch networks to corporate branches to “simplify its retail distribution channels”, with the conversion expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2025.
BOQ management said that “if customers continue to shift to digital channels, then we will see consolidation”.
Finance Sector Union (FSU) national secretary Julia Angrisano went as far as saying that the bank “can’t be trusted.”
“Make no mistake, the move by BOQ to corporatise its bank branches puts them all at great risk of closure – this makes it infinitely easier for BOQ to close branches at the drop of a hat. We’ve already seen them dropping job cuts at a whim yesterday. They’ve proven they can’t be trusted,” Angrisano said.
More to come…
[RELATED: BOQ announces job losses, blames digital channel]
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