Terry McCrann: The great disruptor exits
In the 1990s John Symond took on the big banks — and won. Since then he has delivered tens of billions of dollars in savings to bank customers and around a billion to himself, writes Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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The timing could not have been more exquisite – the retirement of Australia’s first and arguably greatest ‘disruptor’ John Symond.
Back in the 1990s before anyone had even heard of the word — even, especially him — Symond set about disrupting the cozy world of the big banks with his Aussie Home Loans.
Over the decades since he’s ‘delivered’ tens of billions to bank customers and around a billion to himself.
Before Symond and Aussie our banks operated on a 4 percentage point interest margin – the difference between what they charged home loan borrowers and what they paid depositors.
After Symond the margin was sliced in half to around 2 percentage points. Arguably, it would have been forced there without Symond – because of the global shifts in money.
But it was Symond who did drive it, exploiting those global shifts.
Amusingly, his main target was CBA; and it was to CBA that he progressively sold Aussie through the 2010s.
But the benefit stayed.