PostFinance is boosting its mortgage lending: the financial service provider is acquiring a stake in Credit Exchange Ltd (CredEx) and taking a seat on its Board of Directors.
The two parties have “signed a contract to that effect.”
This partnership with the mortgage marketplace CredEx will “enable PostFinance to boost the market position of its mortgages through competitive interest rates.”
To achieve the best possible synergies, PostFinance is bringing “its comparison and sign-up platform Valuu to CredEx.” CredEx will pool the brokerage business “under the Valuu brand and continue operating the intermediary business.”
With a new total of 17 financing partners, PostFinance’s mortgage lending continues to gain in importance. PostFinance already works with Valuu’s “Valuu Pro” mortgage advice tool to provide its customers with financing offers.
Now PostFinance’s advisors not only “offer products from current partners Valiant and Münchener Hypothekenbank under the name of ‘PostFinance mortgage’, they also offer products from a current total of 17 refinancing partners thanks to this additional partnership with CredEx.”
Sandra Lienhart, Chief Business Unit Officer for Retail Banking, said:
“Customers not only benefit from top-quality advice, but from a wide range of products as well – all in a contract with PostFinance as a reliable bank. This boosts customer retention and customer satisfaction. As an independent advisor, PostFinance can offer its customers the best solution, because it does not manage the mortgages on its own balance sheet.”
The new service enables PostFinance to “increase its mortgage volume, conclude supplementary business and increase profitability.”
By means of a capital increase, PostFinance is acquiring “a stake in Credit Exchange Ltd. This means that PostFinance will become a shareholder of the company, alongside Avera, Mobiliar, Swisscom, Vaudoise and Glarner Kantonalbank, and take a seat on the Board of Directors.”
As part of this move, PostFinance is “transferring its comparison and sign-up platform Valuu to the joint venture CredEx – this is to reinforce Valuu’s B2B business, based on the firm belief that combining the two platforms will ensure their long-term success.”
Nothing will change for current Valuu brokers and lenders. There will “be new opportunities for them to place additional volume through CredEx’s additional sales partners.”
Thomas Jakob, Chief Business Unit Officer for Platform Business and CEO of Valuu, PostFinance’s mortgage comparison and sign-up platform, sees major opportunities in a joint future:
“Both platforms are market leaders in their respective customer segments. By working closely together, broker partners can benefit from a one-stop solution – in other words, they can find the best mortgage offer on the Swiss market and take it out there and then with ease.”
Serkan Mirza, CEO of CredEx, is confident about this strategic partnership:
“We will create synergies for everyone involved in our newly expanded ecosystem – whether borrowers, sales partners or lenders – and strengthen CredEx’s positioning as a leading B2B mortgage marketplace in Switzerland for the long term.”
With Valuu, PostFinance launched “the first fully digital mortgage brokerage platform in 2019. It is the first platform to enable the entire financing process end-to-end, including the option of taking out mortgages online.”
Once the platform was developed “into a mortgage comparison service for private customers, it also went on to gain more and more traction in the business customer segment under the name Valuu Pro.”
Around 120 broker partners already “advise their customers on mortgage-related questions with Valuu Pro.”
Currently, the platform has over 34 lenders, “which provides customers with a wide range of products.”
