Do banks still accept, at this time, loan files brought by brokers? Or do they favor direct candidates more than usual? Do not count on them to answer: they do not wish, for the most part, to formalize their policy in this area.
Société Générale is the only one to have publicly confirmed that it no longer accepts, “temporarily”the brokers’ records, however insisting that she “continues to grant loans to [ses] customers and to those who present themselves directly”. However, this bank is not a major player in the home loan market: according to last digits of the Prudential Control and Resolution Authority (ACPR), it represented less than 9% of market share in 2020.
But brokers report similar practices at a few other lenders. What two networks have confirmed to us. “A new client brought in by a broker will currently be less likely than one of our clients coming directly to us, or even a prospect coming to us themselves”summarizes for example a banker. “We put our customers first”reports another bank.
Wear rate
Limiting the use of brokers may indeed be tempting at the moment for certain establishments. Firstly because, in a context of low usury rates, any element weighing on the total credit rate mechanically restricts the level of the interest rate that it is possible to apply, for files affecting this wear rate. So restricts the bank’s margin.
The usury rate is, in effect, the maximum rate at which a bank is authorized to lend. The usury rates being set, each quarter, on the basis of the rates applied for the previous three months (the Banque de France takes the average and increases it by one third), those currently in force (2.40% since 1er April for loans with a term of twenty years or more) do not yet take into account the rapid rise in loan rates observed especially since the end of the first quarter of 2022.
The temporality of the calculation leads the rates of wear and tear to always pass on the increases in the rates practiced with a delay. An increase is planned on 1er July, but its extent is not known; the government must announce in the coming days a measure aimed at accelerating the taking into account of the rise in rates on the usury rate.
Business strategies
More generally, limiting the use of brokers can, for some banks, be a way of reducing the volume of loans granted, in a period when they are not profitable. “In this context where the margins of banks on loans are pinched, because their refinancing rates on the markets exceed the interest rates that they can often practice, I completely understand, from an economic point of view, this strategy”comments Ludovic Huzieux, co-founder of the Artémis brokerage group.
You have 39.25% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.