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Tasmanian-based lender MyState Bank and Queensland-headquartered Auswide Bank recently announced a merger, which came into effect from 19 February.
Speaking to Broker Daily, former CEO of MyState and the new CEO of the merged entity, Brett Morgan, said it will be “business as usual” for both brokers and clients.
“The group is actually going to be made up of four businesses, being MyState Bank, Auswide Bank, Selfco, which is an asset finance company that uses brokers, and also TPT Wealth, which is a non-bank lender among other things,” said Morgan.
“We are going to keep four brands. MyState Bank and Auswide Bank will continue in the market for the foreseeable future. Both businesses will continue to operate with brokers, which is a predominant distribution channel for our lending across both brands.”
Internally, there are some leadership shake-ups to help with the transition. MyState will see former general manager of lending, Tim Newman, step into the role of general manager. On the Auswide side, former chief customer officer Damien Hearne has been appointed as general manager.
Both Newman and Hearne have experience working on the broker side of things and will head up each of their brands.
Morgan said that each bank is still leaning on brokers heavily amid the transition: “Very much business as usual. No real changes from our strategy of being broker distribution centric.
“For brokers and their customers, they should experience no difference. I’ll continue to work with the same BDMs and will continue to operate the way we have. And the identities of the brands will be unchanged.”
The reasoning for the merger was to support scalability and growth. According to Morgan, the past three years saw MyState grow 45 per cent, driven through lending.
The merger with Auswide will see the bank grow by 55 per cent, totalling 100 per cent growth in just a few years.
“The key driver for that is we want to be competitive and a great alternate for brokers and for customers in both lending and banking. And by getting bigger, it means we can continue to invest in product, technology, services and experience. And that means we want more brokers to choose MyState or Auswide or SelfCo or TPT into the future,” he said.
“By scaling up the business and spreading costs across a bigger balance sheet, that means that we can keep improving and investing into the experience we deliver, brokers and customers and borrowers.”
Further, the merger will allow for geographical expansion. The merged entity will see a strong presence down the eastern seaboard.
“MyState has been growing through the Eastern Seaboard and got 25 per cent of our business in Victoria and around 20 per cent in New South Wales and 20 per cent in Queensland. Auswide’s been predominantly Queensland but also growing in the other states. By combining two businesses, we actually get a much better national spread across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania,” said Morgan.
“The strategy will be predominantly focused on the East Coast. That’s where our BDMs are. That’s where our operations are. And we want to be that real challenger and that real choice for brokers and borrowers, particularly across the East Coast, but also nationally.”
The balance sheet of the merged entity will total $12.7 billion in home lending and nearly $10 billion in retail deposits.
Total customers will be 272,000, comprised of 180,000 from MyState and 92,000 from Auswide.
The distribution will see 23 branches, mobile and internet banking, two Australian-based contact centres, brokers, and mobile lenders.
Over the next three years, the operational integration will be completed after “which point the business will have fully realised the ongoing benefits of the merger,” said MyState.
Some further leadership changes will see:
- Sandra Birkensleigh appointed as a non-executive director and board chair.
- Gregory Kenny and Jacqueline Korhonen are appointed as non-executive directors.
- Stephen Davy resigns from his position as a non-executive director.
- Sibylle Krieger, Warren Lee, Vaughn Richtor, and Andrea Waters continue as non-executive directors.
[Related: Auswide and MyState merger date set]
