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Milestones
2019
2020
2022
2022
2022
2023
ORDE established in partnership with property and investment lender Wingate
2019
ORDE launches to market; core of early relationships with brokers developed
2020
More than 1,000 brokers accredited
2022
Over $1bn in total loan settlements
2022
New senior executive team take the reins
2022
Over $2bn in total loan settlements
2023
A new hope – the ORDE factor
Sometimes you need to start from scratch to break old paradigms.
ORDE Financial has been turning heads by setting new standards in service since it launched in 2020 with an unrelenting focus on being a broker-driven lender.
As the non-bank sector grows in terms of market share as well as reputation among brokers and their clients alike, Australian Broker asked top business development managers in ORDE’s sales team to share their vision for the industry, as well as what attracted them to join the company and how it's helping reshape the lender-broker nexus.
Dedicated to pushing new frontiers in delivery, the BDMs at ORDE are leading a long-overdue charge on changing what brokers should expect from a non-bank lender.
Lack of responsiveness to broker needs was a problem whose time had come in the Australian financial industry.
It’s no secret that the power imbalance between a traditional lender and a broker can leave much to be desired in terms of such issues as the time taken to reach a decision; lending criteria; difficulty in navigating the application process; an adequate range of products; or willingness to find solutions that truly work instead of fitting square pegs into round holes and hoping for the best.
Many people in the industry were aware of these problems before ORDE came along. But the weight of incumbency and a lack of knowledge of how to do things differently made it seem like brokers were destined to always get the short end of the stick.
So, when ORDE arrived on the scene, the savvy immediately recognised the need it filled.
“I picked up on ORDE early in their journey. I was convinced that brokers are ready for something fresh that ups the ante, recognising and respecting that it’s brokers who built the non-bank lenders, not the other way around,” says senior BDM (NSW) Tim Lemon.
With more than 20 years of industry experience, Lemon had seen brokers’ needs being ignored time and again. It made no sense given that brokers are generally the ones at the customer coalface with access to the latest undercurrents in business sentiment and issues facing borrowers.
“ORDE’s bedrock orientation on delivering service and solutions to brokers is completely in line with what brokers have been calling for and with my values,” he says.
Spotlight
ORDE is a specialist lender focusing on residential, commercial and SMSFs and backed by Wingate, a leading investment business and one of Australia’s most successful private property lenders, with more than $11.5bn of financed property transactions. ORDE provides competitive rates with no ongoing fees; comprehensive digital operations; and a highly experienced credit team. ORDE’s business team has extensive experience in leading and operating Australian specialist lending businesses and uses this experience to implement today's redefined digital technology capabilities, unlocking big improvements and delivering them to broker and borrower customers.
Company Profile
>$2bn
Total loan settlements
>1,000
Accredited brokers
75%
Maximum LVR for commercial loan
80%
Maximum LVR for residential loan
30 yrs
Maximum loan term
Bio
Spotlight
Milestones
Media
Accolades
Company Profile
Years of experience
25
tenure at current position
3 years
career highlight
Being picked to lead ORDE's distribution team
ORDE Financial
BDMs in the spotlight
Top BDMs at ORDE Financial share how they are pushing back boundaries on service and helping to change cultures and set new standards across the lender-broker universe
Read on
Craig Meale, ORDE Financial
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Milestones
2011
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2021
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2011
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2012
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2021
A new hope – the ORDE factor
Spotlight
Karen Adams
President and CEO at Fundserv
Before becoming CEO of Fundserv, Karen Adams held a variety of leadership roles around the world – and she learned that listening and understanding are key to both providing service and developing talent
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Kale Patterson became a BDM at ORDE after extensive experience across both commercial and residential lending.
“It’s an organisation that’s not afraid to challenge the status quo where it’s needed,” he says.
He, too, had often seen brokers having to deal with lenders that were set in their ways with no meaningful willingness to change.
“The leadership team [at ORDE] from the get-go understood the gap in the market that leaves brokers underserviced,” Patterson says.
The success of that approach has been eye-opening, with the emerging national lender settling over $2bn in loans by early 2023. ORDE’s rise coincides with a gradual sea change in borrower awareness of the non-bank options available and brokers’ collective role in delivering those options.
Listening to brokers and what they want is key to ORDE’s approach – something that many lenders pay lip service to or are only able to action in an ad hoc manner.
“We were and are able to challenge this by truly listening to the needs of our broker partners, having honest conversations with them and valuing the feedback passed on to encourage continuous improvement in our products and processes,” says Patterson.
ORDE’s extensive range of loan products is an important cornerstone of its relationships with brokers and their clients. It offers a full and flexible range of lending options for residential, commercial and SMSF loans, across full-doc, alt-doc, prime, near prime and other specialist profiles. It is one of the most flexible lenders around when it comes to its treatment of debt consolidation for both business and personal debts.
Its commercial lending solutions include commercial property loans and focused development sector products. Loan facilities can be secured with a range of different properties, such as offices, medical rooms, shops and restaurants, as well as factories, service stations and warehouses.
Kale Patterson, ORDE Financial
“Ultimately, we are a good fit due to our broad lending product range across residential, commercial, SMSF, highest and best use, retained stock and bridging loans. We are open to a variety of income and security types to provide brokers with a genuine alternative option to the banks,” says senior BDM Craig Meale.
But it was the willingness to find workarounds to lending problems and the implication of that approach for borrowers that appealed to Meale personally.
“I was inspired by the experience of the founding team and their can-do attitude to a solutions-based broker model,” he says.
“ORDE has a very broad product range with a scalable technology that allows people to focus on the key points of a deal. I thought, ‘Wow, ORDE is doing things differently and have the knowledge to back it up’.”
He was also impressed by the fact that systems were still in the process of being deployed without pre-set ideas, and that he would have the opportunity to contribute to shaping a new lending paradigm better suited to the post-pandemic world.
“[It] was a great opportunity to be on the ground floor, and the potential for growth was immense, both as a new lender and also my own ability to deliver.”
Being able to see things from a broker perspective is a key ingredient in the secret sauce at ORDE.
“Understanding a broker’s perspective is very important and invaluable to deliver a meaningful experience,” says senior BDM Chitresh Luthra.
Building trust and treating brokers with respect are paramount.
“This mindset and being accountable to delivering high standards will drive more brokers' success,” he says.
Delivering an end-to-end solution that provides clarity and confidence to brokers empowers them. But it depends not only on the BDMs’ understanding that they must be broker oriented but also on the other parts of the organisation, such as broker operations, credit, settlements, customer service, and marketing and education.
“They say it only works when it all works – this comes down to everyone at ORDE who is pivotal to delivering a seamless broker experience,” says Luthra.
“I was inspired by the experience of the founding team and their can-do attitude to a solutions-based broker model”
“It’s an organisation that is not afraid to challenge the status quo where it’s needed”
1999
2003
2007
2015
2020
2021
Joins NAB as executive broker distribution
2021
Becomes head of private wealth north at Westpac
2020
Appointed head of asset finance at CBA
2015
Named captain of the Waratahs
2007
Named vice-captain of Australia's Rugby World Cup team
2003
Waugh debuts as a professional rugby player with the Waratahs; makes Test debut with the Wallabies
1999
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Tim Lemon
Senior BDM (NSW)
Kale Patterson
BDM (Vic)
Chitresh Luthra
Senior BDM (Vic)
Craig Meale
Senior BDM (NSW)
More
Tim Lemon
Senior BDM (NSW)
The BDMs
Find out more
Find out more
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La Trobe Financial head of distribution Michelle Bannister shares her career journey, hoping to inspire more women to join the finance industry
Find out more
A gap in the service market
Spotlight
Career HIGHLIGHT
Winning Finsure Non-bank BDM of the Year in 2019 and 2022
The ORDE arsenal
Putting yourself in brokers’ shoes
“Understanding a broker’s perspective is very important and invaluable to deliver a meaningful experience”
Chitresh Luthra, ORDE Financial
Taking feedback from brokers and inputting it into the ORDE formula as a continual improvement process enables ORDE to stay on top of the ever-changing needs of the market it serves.
“[Our] speed, access to a decision-maker and consistent service underpin our shared success with brokers,” says Meale.
“Broker success is our team success. ORDE partners with brokers and seeks feedback to continue to improve and evolve,” he says. “The ability to adapt settings responding to feedback is as important as the listening.”
One thing that ORDE won’t do is chase or accept direct customers, which eliminates channel conflict.
An open culture
When brokers do a deal at ORDE, its One Lending Team culture ensures transparency and open engagement from initial scenario to loan settled.
Applications are workshopped with senior credit team members to ensure BDMs find the right solution for every customer as a standard part of broker support. Throughout the process, brokers also have access to the entire ORDE team and can draw on their collective expertise as part of the broker-lender relationship.
“There is a real sense of support and synchronicity throughout every division of the organisation,” says Patterson, adding that transparency as a BDM is a key part of the process.
Brokers find that having the ability to tap the collective brain at ORDE, coupled with its wide product range, enables them to keep more customers happy for longer, across a spectrum of lending areas.
“ORDE’s bedrock orientation on delivering service and solutions to brokers is completely in line with what brokers have been calling for”
Tim Lemon, ORDE FinanciaL
“Having access to such a diverse product range and sound understanding of commercial security, brokers who use ORDE are able to find solutions for more customers,” says Lemon.
“The brokers that have benefited the most are the ones who have embraced writing commercial, SMSF, alt-doc and credit-impaired loans.”
ORDE is on its way to creating the antidote to the winner-loser split that occurs for borrowers in some parts of the wider lending industry, something that is tough to do in a high-service culture deliverable at scale.
“ORDE has done a great job of putting together the best of the best in non-bank lending, to ensure every application has the greatest chance of success,” says Lemon.
Chitresh Luthra
Senior BDM (Vic)
Being a 2019 finalist for The Adviser magazine BDM of the Year
Career HIGHLIGHT
Craig Meale
Senior BDM (NSW)
Helping my broker partners deliver more than $1bn in home loan applications
Career HIGHLIGHT
Kale Patterson
BDM (Vic)
Being on the road, working closely with brokers
Career HIGHLIGHT
Kale Patterson
BDM (Vic)
Craig Meale
Senior BDM (NSW)
Chitresh Luthra
Senior BDM (Vic)
Tim Lemon
Senior BDM (NSW)
Published 01 May 2023