We’ve all seen the news this week discussing the Banking Royal Commission, which was established to investigate poor practices and banking misconduct – where a culture of greed was revealed through media, with Banks being the focus.

Yet one industry heavily targeted in this was Mortgage Broking –  which we could argue is one channel within financial services which could actually influence bank behaviour in a positive way.

Without brokers, competition diminishes and without competition, we are literally handing the power right back to the banks.

As somebody who supports mortgage brokers and has used both brokers and banks to obtain funding, I have a personal experience of the difference between the those two channels and I’d like to share what I’ve personally experienced while dealing with brokers.

At Affordable Staff, we provide admin support to our broker community and are aware of the activities that they do every day to support their clients.

  1. We know that it’s the borrower and not the bank who is at the top of their mind
  2. Also that they work really hard to represent the interests of their clients.
  3. They’re battling constantly with banks in order to get funding approved in this very tough credit environment – and we know that they’re fighting these battles every day on behalf of their client.

As an example, we know that the brokers working with us are actively reviewing their clients on a regular basis, and that they are able to do this because in outsourcing their Admin load, they have more time to focus on their clients and also on their business.

They are undertaking activities such as seeking pricing after a loan has settled from the existing bank – which again, aids in keeping the market competitive.

We know that they are completing switches for their clients such as fixing a rate or converting to a principal and interest payment  – and they are NOT receiving additional payment for that service. They’re also completing discharge forms if a client sells their property.

This is just a small mention of the type of work that Mortgage Brokers do for their clients. As borrowers, we all need to ask ourselves, would a bank do this for me?

Would that bank consistently review my file and make changes where they know it would be of benefit to me? This is unlikely.

What if you have multiple banks to deal with because you have multiple properties and lending circumstances differ between properties and one bank couldn’t meet all requirements?

Without your broker to act as the educated intermediary between you and the lender, who could you talk to and plan with in relation to your overall borrowing position?

We need to support Mortgage Brokers and the industry as a whole – because if we don’t take action now we could be looking at some pretty dark days ahead when it comes to securing funding. Please remember to support the Mortgage Broker Support Campaigns out there such as Connective’s #choicematters campaign. I’ll also include links to some of these below.

This is Nadine from Affordable Staff, helping you build business efficiency through outsourcing.



#choicematters


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Don’t Kill Competiton


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