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- Online personal lender Harmoney (HMY) has reported its highest April originations in the company’s history
- Total group originations rose from NZ$4.2 million in April 2020 to NZ$37.8 million in April 2021, an 800 per cent year-on-year increase
- Harmoney attributed this to a bounce-back from COVID-19’s impacts, and the Australian release of its Libra 1.7 technology in February
- The company plans to release Libra 1.8 in New Zealand this July, which could significantly boost new lending in the market
- Harmoney is up 10.8 per cent and trading at $1.75 per share
Online personal lender Harmoney (HMY) has reported its highest April originations in the company’s history.
Like countless other businesses, the New Zealand-based company saw a substantial decrease in activity in parts of 2020. This was the result of COVID-19’s financial impacts, which hit people, enterprises, and entire economies hard and fast last year.
In April of 2020, Harmoney saw total combined group originations of only NZ$4.2 million (approximately A$3.89 million), across its Australian and New Zealand operations. However, in April of 2021, the company saw total combined group originations of NZ$37.8 million (roughly A$35 million), a year-on-year increase of approximately 800 per cent.
There were increases across the board, in both new and repeat customer originations, in Australia as well as New Zealand.
Harmoney’s CEO, David Stevens, commented on the company’s growth, which included its milestone listing on the ASX in November 2020.
“Calendar year 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic was a heavily impacted period for Harmoney’s new business growth, particularly in New Zealand, which has had a flow-on impact into 2021, resulting in less customers being eligible for repeat loans,” he said.
“However, as evidenced in today’s update, the business is building strong momentum in Australia and has a clear and immediate plan in place for New Zealand originations growth,” he added.
Harmoney attributed much of this encouraging increase to the bounce-back from COVID-19’s impacts, and the Australian release of its Libra 1.7 technology in February 2021.
Libra is the company’s new-generation, behavioural credit decisioning and pricing engine, which designed to improve credit risk prediction. The Libra 1.7 update has continued to deliver twice the volume of new customer loans in Australian than the previous update did.
Harmoney has predicted that the company’s cumulative Australian loan origination volumes will exceed $300 million by the end of the 2021 financial year.
The company plans to release the next update, Libra 1.8, in New Zealand in early July 2021. Based on the technology’s outstanding performance in Australia, Harmoney expects that the launch will significantly boost new lending in the New Zealand market.
To facilitate continued growth in originations, the company has finalised an increase of its warehouse facility with one of Australia’s “Big Four” banks. The facility was previously capped at $115 million, but has now been increased to $177 million.
Harmoney has also arranged for the warehouse facility to be extended from January 2022 to January 2023.
Additionally, the company soon expects to finalise its NZ$200 million+ Heartland Bank-funded warehouse facilities for Australia and New Zealand.
Harmoney is up 10.8 per cent, trading at $1.75 per share at market close.
