New Zealand insurance and funds management group Asteron, which is owned by Australia's Suncorp Metway, has announced it has pulled out of the home loan market. "We are closing a small niche business line (which has had relatively low volumes of qualifying loan applications) in order to focus on our highly successful core businesses," Asteron's General Manager Antony Vriens said. Asteron received its wholesale funding from GE Money Home Loans, which has withdrawn its 2 and 3 year mortgages from the market in recent weeks as funding costs on wholesale markets have either risen sharply or dried up completely in the wake of the global Credit Crunch. The move is the latest in a progressive drying up of home lending for borrowers wanting to borrow with little equity or with little documentation to prove their income sources. ASB's Sovereign dramatically tightened its lending criteria last month.
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