Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Johannesburg - Some mortgage originators heaved a sigh of relief on Thursday after Standard Bank renewed mortgage origination contracts with them.
This does not mean that the heated dispute between Standard Bank and the industry has ended. From 24 August the bank will provisionally use the services only of the PA Group - which includes Betterbond and Mortgage Alliance - as well as Bond Choice en Multinet, Standard Bank spokesperson Ross Linstrom said on Thursday.
Ooba chief executive Saul Geffen confirmed that his company had not yet concluded an originator agreement with Standard Bank, and was still involved in negotiations.
The dispute arose earlier this year after banks began to review mortgage-originator contracts in an attempt to reduce costs owing to the commissions payable.
Although the other banks renegotiated their contracts relatively quickly, negotiations between Standard Bank and the industry have been dragged out over the past six months. Over this period the bank has accepted no applications for mortgage loans from bond originators.
Sake24 confidentially ascertained that the new contracts had been renegotiated at reduced commissions, but the percentages involved were not disclosed. But they are in line with the other banks, which renegotiated their contracts with mortgage originators earlier this year at commissions of up to 40% less than before. Before the renegotiation, commissions had been between 2% and 2.5% of the value of the home loan. They are now from 1.2% to 1.5%-odd.
PA Group chief executive Rudi Botha reckons that for Betterbond and Mortgage Alliance it's business as usual once more, and renegotiation of the contract with Standard Bank could boost the group's volumes by up to 30%.
Mortgage originators seek home loans for buyers from banks, and often manage to negotiate competitive interest rates for their clients. They earn commission on the contracts.
Almost 70% of all new home loans are facilitated by originators, ooba recently disclosed.
- Sake24.com
For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.