Bank poised for growth

By Richard Braddell

WELLINGTON - AMP Banking will rely less on the direct bank approach of forerunner Ergo, when it begins to seriously attack the market early next year.

Its chief executive, Robyn Clubb, said the bank had been relatively quiet over the past few months as it sorted out the integration of Ergo with the registered bank, that has now been developed from the mortgage business acquired from Citibank last year.

She said AMP Banking would be much more reliant on AMP's advisory force and mortgage brokers who, alone, now account for about 55 per cent of the company's new home loan business.

Accompanying the change in sales pitch is a host of new products and services, additional to the simple lending and deposit facilities offered by Ergo.

AMP Banking is offering revolving credit loans, ATM facilities and cheque accounts.

It will soon introduce a term deposit call account that offers a chequebook, overdraft, high interest and ATM and Eftpos access.

But, while AMP/Ergo's advertising profile has been less than obvious in recent months, Robyn Clubb said the combined operations have exceeded growth targets with $600 million in new mortgages this calendar year, taking the loan book to $2.3 billion.

Nevertheless, she said targets have been conservative, given the work necessary to bring two operations together and build platforms to support a wider range of banking services.

The exercise has also been costly, although not as expensive as it would have been if AMP had bought off-the-shelf banking systems.

The company's IT platform has been based on the one developed in New Zealand for Ergo which was further refined in Australia.

It will be the central platform for all AMP's global banking operations, including one to be set up in Britain to target subsidiary Pearl's customer base.

AMP's half-owned Virgin Direct banking business in Britain will continue to function as a separate direct bank.

But while AMP Banking has done much of its systems development in-house, some systems have been out-sourced, including the transactional banking arrangements which are supported by WestpacTrust.

Although AMP Banking has met targets, Robyn Clubb said the competition has become more fierce. Nevertheless, AMP Banking thinks it is getting around 7 per cent of the total market in new mortgage business.

However, capturing deposits has been "a little more challenging."