Lender cuts rates, upgrades platforms

For a limited time, qualifying borrowers at Wide Bay Australia will receive a special variable rate of 4.65 per cent on new home loans of $150,000 or more.

The building society claims to now have the lowest variable interest rate in the nation.

“With over 80 per cent of home loans currently held with the big four banks and with a combined profit of over $28 billion in the 2013/2014 financial year, we’re encouraging potential borrowers to choose Wide Bay Australia and take advantage of our lowest advertised home loan rate ever,” Wide Bay lending sales manager Matt Challies said.

Meanwhile, the lender has signed an agreement with Sandstone Technology to upgrade its existing lending and digital banking platforms.

Wide Bay Australia managing director, Martin Barrett said the Queensland-based lender had enjoyed a successful working relationship with Sandstone Technology for a number of years and is pleased to see the relationship continue to evolve with a substantial investment in lending and digital upgrades.

"Sandstone continues to provide innovative solutions that are world-class which is essential to us here at Wide Bay Australia as we strive to make banking easier and more convenient for our customers and expand our footprint into new markets and delivery channels,” Mr Barrett said.

“The competitive landscape dictates that, to survive and prosper, we continue to deliver cutting edge technological capability and innovation with secure and efficient platforms,” he said.

As part of the upgrade, Wide Bay will migrate their existing version of Sandstone's LendFast customer on-boarding and loan origination system to the latest version, with mortgage brokers being the first to experience the new straight through processing solution early next year.

The system upgrades will deliver faster processing, through extensive automation, referral workflows, document management, and progress tracking and notification, from customer on-boarding to loan settlement, according to a company statement.

Digital banking will see the introduction of a portal banking platform, with responsive design and product widgets allowing the customer's experience to be personalised to their product needs and adapted to the device they are using, Wide Bay said.