Last week 10 years ago, one of our favourite Women in Digital Corporate Members, Managing Director of loans.com.au Marie Mortimer launched her company ​in Brisbane as a direct-to-retail business ​selling home loans for its parent company, Firstmac.

​We sat down with Marie Mortimer to find out exactly how she took a great domain name and an idea to grow it into a company with $6 billion of home and car loans under management, and a diverse team of more than 250 staff members.

“We owned the domain name loans.com.au and it started with myself with the help of one other person plus an external contractor built my website,” Mortimer said.

“It was a pretty basic site but it had a full home loan application on it that was connected to the backend credit system. We had an instant media coverage because we were offering something different to the banks and our interest rates have always been very low.”

“I remember the first week we started when people starting applying online. We’d just officially launched our website with a killer rate and there was an article in the AFR about us. We were sitting in the office on a Friday night having a beer, and were watching home loan applications come in.”

“It was after hours, when bank branches were closed and people were applying for finance online!”

“It was and exciting and memorable moment for us. Funny story – our first settled customer was a big bank branch manager. So we knew we were on the right track!”

“So this year as we celebrate 10 years in business, loans.com.au has approximately $6 billion in loans under management. Firstmac has more than $13 billion. So, it makes us bigger than some smaller banks and building societies and we are extremely proud of that,” Mortimer said.

Not only has Marie Mortimer led the business to commercial success, but she has also grown a strong culture for her employees, with her Brisbane-based team exceeding 250 staff in 2021.

​Fast diversity facts for loans.com.au:

• Worldwide, 58% of roles in the Firstmac Group are held by females
• The Executive team is 50% female
• Staff range in age from 19 to 74
• More than 65% have service of between 3 and 20 years

Home Loan Sales Team Leader Sam Pendrey is proud of the diversity and family driven culture of loans.com.au.

“It is unique in the industry as a place where we have a diverse range of staff and everyone gets equal opportunity and a chance to be heard, which I am extremely proud to be a part of,” Pendrey said.

“The long tenure of so many staff has helped to foster friendships, as well as an environment where people can comfortably bring their own ideas & opinions forward from all areas, which is a credit to Marie’s leadership and strong focus on inclusion.”

Marie Mortimer is Managing Director of loans.com.au, one of Australia’s largest online lenders. Marie is dedicated to improving financial literacy for all Australians, championing diversity in digital and is passionate about the FinTech industry in Australia. When she isn’t at work, she loves to spend time with her husband and two young children.

loans.com.au is an online lender for home and car loans. For 10 years, Aussies have trusted the locally based loans.com.au team to support them with low home loan and car loan rates, approved quickly through the online loans.com.au app.