It's been a pretty wild week for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA). The CBA share price ended up closing at $104.60 on Friday, up 0.77% for the day after some big falls on Thursday.
Perhaps news of the bank's new digital mortgage platform has been helping to boost investor sentiment this week.
Yes, on Tuesday, CBA's management announced the launch of 'Unloan', a new digital platform designed to provide "one, simple, low-cost interest rate".
In a company press release, CBA told Australians the following:
Owner-occupiers who refinance to Unloan will pay an interest rate of 2.14% (2.06% comparison rate) and investors 2.44% (2.36% comparison rate). Digital applications take as little as ten minutes and customers receive a loyalty discount that grows by 0.01% p.a. every year, up to 30 years.
Customers looking to refinance their properties up to a value of $3 million and up to 80% of their value can start applying now.
In addition, the bank also announced a new app called 'Kit'. Kit will be a "money app and digital information tool for kids, aimed at helping them learn about money, how to save, how to budget, and how to manage their spending". The app is currently in pilot.
So is the CBA share price a buy now?
With all of these new products on the way, could this make the CBA share price a buy?
Well, those are really two different questions. According to an article in The Australian this week, ASX brokers like what they see coming out of CBA. The article quotes analysts at broker and investment bank Macquarie as saying the following:
While CBA's strategy may require additional investment, we see a large proportion of investment as the cost of staying in business and hence expect banks to maintain/increase their investment spend in the medium term… CBA should be able to reduce the cost of originating a mortgage and reduce customer churn by offering a loyalty discount.
However, that wasn't enough to stop Macquarie analysts from maintaining an "underperform" rating on CBA shares. As we covered last week, Macquarie still has a $90 share price target on CBA shares for the next 12 months. The broker reckons CBA shares don't warrant their premium valuation compared to the other ASX banks.
Another ASX broker in Goldman Sachs is also struggling to see value in CBA shares today. It has its own "sell" rating on CBA right now, with a 12-month share price target of $89.86 a share. Goldman's concerns over CBA shares are similar, citing a premium valuation as the most pressing concern.
At the current CBA share price, this ASX 200 bank share has a market capitalisation of $175.18 billion, with a dividend yield of almost 3.6%.
