Fairfax Laughs All the Way to Westpac

Australian broadsheet newspaper publisher John Fairfax has signed a deal with Westpac, one of Australia’s four
banking giants, to marry its real estate content with Westpac’s home loan
services.

The first part of the deal will be a project in March to integrate
Fairfax’s domain.com.au site,
operated by its f2 subsidiary, with Westpac’s Home Loan Centre.

The two companies will share the marketing costs and the profits from the
site, hoping that its prediction that 30 per cent of home loans would be
originated online by 2005 would come true. Fairfax will also contribute
free advertising across its other 30 Web sites.

“An increasing number of people use the Internet to search for a home and
to arrange their finances – bringing our services together makes a lot of
sense,” said Nigel Dews, chief executive of f2.