Pepper Australia has launched an issue of residential mortgage-backed securities, seeking A$300 million of funding. Pepper Residential Securities Trust No.11 is backed by a pool of non-conforming loans. Around 40 per cent of the assets are low-doc loans and another 40 per cent are credit-impaired loans. Simon Andrews, a senior manager at ING Direct in Australia from 1995 to 2005, is to take responsibility for operations and information technology, including the branchless bank's "Zero Touch IT" core infrastructure project. These two functions were previously headed up by Anne Myers and Andrew Henderson, respectively. Myers has taken an assignment at ING Direct in Italy while Henderson, the Australian bank's former chief information officer, has been appointed to a senior IT role at ING Group in Amsterdam. Westpac NZ has said more than a third of its customers with pre-approvals for high loan to value ratio (LVR) loans had voluntary chosen to give up their pre-approvals after being told of tougher lending criteria and higher interest rates. Westpac said it had to withdraw a much smaller number of pre-approvals against the wishes of its customers.  Last month ASB unilaterally withdrew pre-approvals for high LVR loans to comply with a new Reserve Bank limit.