No plans for trail from ASB

Mortgage advisers can rule out ASB introducing trail commissions anytime soon, according to comments from chief executive Barbara Chapman.

Thursday, August 13th 2015, 4:50PM

TMM Online asked Chapman whether the bank had any plans to introduce trail commissions along the lines of what Westpac and BNZ pay advisers.

She said there are "no plans."

"I haven’t had any discussions about that," she said. "I’d imagine if the team were going to do something like that it would come across my desk and I haven’t seen anything."

In the past ASB have said if mortgage advisers want to earn trail commission then they can use the Sovereign products, which are pretty much identical to what ASB offers.

Chapman acknowledged that the bank’s market share in home lending had decreased and that ASB hadn’t been growing its lending book at the same rate a market growth.

This slower growth rate was “deliberate” she said.

“We’ve been keeping an eye on some of those deals in the market and it has been such a competitive period that there’s been deals and pricing that we’re not prepared to match.

“While we have been prepared to look after our customers there have been deals we’ve been prepared to walk away from,” she said.

“We’re very consciously looking at what is a fair return on a home loan and there are just some deal we won’t do.”

In its forecasts the bank is predicting a slow down in credit growth. While it is forecast to be 5.6% in 2015, the numbers fall to between 3.5% and % in 2016 and between 2.5% and 4.5% the following year.

Slower credit growth combined with borrowers moving from floating rates to lower margin fixed rate home loans will put pressure on bank profitability.

Chapman says that has been “forecasted into our plans” and ASB will look to offset this trend by focussing on other product classes such as corporate, commercial and rural banking.

“It’s not unexpected that margins will go down in this part of the cycle,” she says. “We’re diversifying to keep the result coming through.”

Tags: ASB Barbara Chapman Commission