Yahoo Finance Hasselhoff causes home loan boom at ANZ
ANZ has struggled to keep up with the booming property market after an ad campaign starring David Hasselhoff triggered a surge of home loan applications.
ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott said the bank has struggled to keep up with the booming property market as it has been inundated with home loan applications.
In its first half results, ANZ said it provided over 92,000 new home loans in the half year, lifting its position to the third largest home lender in the market.
“Home ownership is core to what we do and I’ve been satisfied with the turn-around of our business in Australia while we continue to lead the market in New Zealand,” Elliott said.
“In Australia, we grew in our targeted segment of owner occupiers and maintained our high quality lending standards without growing costs.”
The reason for the boom? The Hoff.
Elliott said the bank was inundated with mortgage applications following an ad campaign which launched just before the COVID lockdowns hit.
The campaign starred David Hasselhoff, who disappeared slowly with the tagline “a home loan offer so good you don't need a celebrity”.
Elliott said the ad was such a success it led to the surge in applications hitting the bank.
“We would normally do $200 million worth of applications in a day and through that campaign, we would do $300, $400, $500, $600, $800, $1 billion on a few days. It was just extraordinary,” Elliott said.
Additionally, Elliott said the bank remains the largest lender in New Zealand having grown faster than the market.
However, with more applications comes a greater backlog. Elliott acknowledged that there has been some issues with processing times.
“Challenges remain in Australia with home loan turn-around times, particularly in the broker space, given the ongoing growth in applications,” he said.
“While we’d almost doubled our assessment capacity, the new business we attracted regularly exceeded capacity.”
Elliott said this will be something the bank focuses on going forward and said the current assessment service levels at the bank are not where they need to be.
“We know we need to improve and we’re investing in all stages of our processes,” he said.
“Increasing the use of automation will be a key factor.”
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