Tightening liquidity has seen the Macquarie Group’s Securitisation business announce today that it will scale back its Australian mortgage services for retail and wholesale customers from this week.
The company said the move was due to the significant increase in the cost of funding mortgages and current conditions in the global mortgage securitisation market.
Macquarie’s Banking and Financial Services Group boss Peter Maher said existing customers who hold loan facilities with the bank will not be affected by the company’s decision to substantially reduce origination of new residential mortgages in Australia from March 7, 2008.
“There will be no impact on these customers and we will continue to provide to them the range of existing customer services including mortgage variation services.
“It will be business as usual for our existing customer base,” Maher said.
Macquarie’s Australian customers hold 95,000 loans and the company’s mortgage portfolio comprises about 2.5 per cent of the total outstanding housing loans market in Australia.
“New mortgage business will continue to be written although it will be at much reduced volumes,” he said.
