Lender strife for Pioneer

Smaller lenders are continuing to reorganise their businesses as they grapple with difficulties in the mortgage market.

Monday, May 12th 2008, 4:39PM

by Maria Scott

Pioneer Mortgage Services is no longer marketing loans through its Pacific Home Loans and Asset Lend brands following the termination in March of funding arrangements with ANZ subsidiary Origin. Pioneer said at the time that it was looking at new funding arrangements in New Zealand but the company's general manager in New Zealand, Robert Redford says that these may no longer be put in place.

"We are reviewing the need to take on these funding lines at this time."

He says that Pioneer is still in the market to lend in New Zealand and was continuing to work with funder GE.

"We are committed to GE and they are committed to us."

He says Pioneer is considering changing its commission structure for brokers, weighting payments to up-front commission, rather than trail payments. Redford says the company relies on brokers for their support and that he believes they may prefer higher upfront payments in the current environment. No decisions have been made yet. At present Pioneer pays 0.55% upfront and 0.2% in trail commissions.

Redford has taken over at Pioneer from former general manager Peter Anderson who has retired although he remains on the board of the parent company. Redford held an equivalent position at United Home Loans until earlier this year and has been involved in the residential mortgage market for nearly a decade. He says that conditions now are the toughest he has seen in most of his time in the industry.

"Every economic indicator seems to be heading in the wrong direction."

Tasman, one of the mortgage lending businesses within the Lombard financial services group, is no longer being marketed as a stand-alone brand. The company had been owned earlier by entities within the failed Blue Chip packaged-property investment empire. Lombard's finance company division was placed in receivership in April but the Lombard Group said that its mortgage businesses Tasman and United continued to trade at acceptable levels and were not directly affected if Blue Chip borrowers defaulted.

Mac Bycroft, chief executive of United Home Loans says that it had become too expensive to promote both the Tasman and United brands. Despite the withdrawal of the Tasman name from the market business continued as usual at United.

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