Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has launched Financial Planning Banking, a specialist financial services and banking division targeting Australia's financial planners.
Financial Planning Banking has been developed and structured to meet the demand for more versatile banking.
CBA national manager for specialist markets Stewart Creighton said the new facility would provide transactional, debt and equipment needs to financial planning businesses and dealer groups.
The new team will be run by former Macquarie Bank financial planning banker Ian Anderson and Stewart Creighton, who was previously with CBA's franchising division.
Another three financial planning bankers will be appointed, all based in Sydney, with plans to expand to other capital cities in Australia.
Practices from dealer groups accredited by the new division will be given streamlined lending procedures and succession planning strategies.
CBA has been offering the lending service to its own dealer group Financial Wisdom for the last two years.
"We were initially facilitating Financial Wisdom through our specialist franchising team," Creighton said.
"However, we felt the time was right to establish a financial planning banking team and open to outside the [Commonwealth Bank] Group".
There are currently six dealer groups seeking accreditation outside CBA.
The new service is the latest edition to the growing number of specialist divisions within CBA.
Its franchising division has been running for the last three years and it will be opening a specialist division in healthcare banking at the end of this year.
