Which Bank? Not that Bank

Wow, the lack of competition in the Australian Banking industry is causing havoc for borrowers.

In the past year we have experienced massive delays, understaffed lending teams, policy changes, bank reluctance to fund deals, and abysmal service. The banks say they are hurting, however the record half yearly profits for the majors don't really reflect this.

In fact, they are reducing their service teams, reducing their support phone lines (some banks have cut off their enquiry lines as there were too many phone calls chasing them), cutting broker commissions, and even charging brokers to stay accredited with them.

Its a formula of profits before people, just look at their TV ads - they are not joking, they are really that incompetent.

The biggest culprit seems to be the lender with the biggest market share - Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Currently, I am waiting 2 weeks and 2 days for a simple increase of $60k for a client that is borrowing only 60% Gearing, and is an existing client of the bank.
They told us it would take 1 day to approve - yeah right!

At first, our fax was supposedly lost by their team, and when refaxed, it took them 3 days (we chased them everyday) to tell us that they no longer except the paper form, instead we must now apply electronically.
The request was quite suspicious as the next day they were changing from fax to a paperless system for their loan applications. I think it was just to get rid of the faxed deal from their system.

After calling CBA everyday for updates, 4 emails, the client who needs to settle in a week on another purchase has found finance elsewhere, and we are still no closer to a credit officer looking at the deal in CBA.

And this is after paying CBA that forced us to pay $500!!!! for refresher training, sitting through their propoganda video about them being a determined team to provide customer service.
Well maybe they should strive a little harder - they are failing to turn around a simple request for an existing customer at the moment.

So when someone asks you Which Bank? Please, not that bank - expect to be treated poorly and you wont be disappointed.

Please Australia, start using more lenders and provide some competition - Westpac and Commonwealth are doing 75% of all home loans at the moment....its time to balance the industry, or we will all suffer from their pathetic service.