A big target for newly merged company

Wellington-based LifeDirect expects to be writing $1 billion in mortgages every year by 2026 after the merger last month of majority shareholder Mark Solomon’s other businesses Loan Market Capital & Coast and Insurance Market into the parent company.

Thursday, November 14th 2024, 9:37AM

Until the merger Loan Market Capital & Coast had been arranging $400 million of mortgages annually for clients in the greater Wellington region.

With the merger, LifeDirect, an online platform allowing customers to easily compare and buy insurance, has now expanded nationwide to also cover mortgage comparisons from both the main banks and non-banks and a KiwiSaver service. “It opens up a much wider market,” Solomon says.

With its new mortgage comparison site and some “really cool initiatives” be rolled out next month to attract more people to the home loan page, Black Caps and White Ferns cricket sponsorship and LifeDirect brand awareness, Solomon is confident the business will hit its target within two years.

He is also looking a couple of third party sites that have strong visitor numbers and are interested in home loans, that LifeDirect can integrate with as the facilitator for those inquiries. Solomon says he should have something to announce next month.

His existing business has a client base of 50,000, so “it’s not just going out to new customers, but all our existing clients as well.”

“Making it easier for clients is the business offers both home loans and insurance for those loans under the one umbrella.

The business already does 20,000 sessions a month on its site for people looking for life and health insurance and sees no reason why the mortgage page will not get up to similar numbers.

“Insurance is a tricky product and probably the last thing people think about when they are acquiring a home loan. We think there will be a lot of research done at the top of the funnel by consumers and if we can make it easier for them to transact both a mortgage and insurance for that mortgage, it will a viable site and a great opportunity.”

Site users are initially expected to ascertain if they can apply for a home loan. “If they're a first home buyer or if they're looking to refinance, we will take them through an online application process and then filter them through to our advisers. After the applicants have been pre-qualified advisers will then have more of a meaningful discussion with them to work out what home loan is suitable for them.”

Solomon says although the site will have home loan interest rate comparisons, they are not the be all and end all. Rates aren’t generally the main lever for whether a client takes out a home loan, he says. “The site is certainly a place where we will have content to give consumers a good understanding of different home loan structures and what to do and not what to do when it comes to mortgages. It will have people sitting behind it.”

Solomon believes LifeDirect will be successful. “Loan Market Capital & Coast was the top Australasian loan market franchise in 2022 and last year. “We have the existing infrastructure in place, we have the existing people in place.

“The whole merger piece took about one year because we were dealing with two different companies with two different cultures. The culture and value piece was probably the hardest for us to gel together, but that's all in place now.”

Solomon, who has 30 years in financial services and was a founding director of NZFSG, says although there are other platforms, such as the bigger Squirrel Mortgages, offering similar online mortgage service, it will be a combination of an improving housing market, 20% of the company’s existing data base, new lead generation programmes and a solid brand that will get it to the $1 billion mark.

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