Advocacy over shouting leads the way

FANZ is advocating foremost for its own business not the mortgage adviser industry. If FANZ was the real advocate for our industry which they claim to be then they would have come out publicly in the last five years to say mortgage advisers shouldn’t be going through any of the regulations forced upon us. The regulatory changes introduced for mortgage advice businesses in New Zealand are not appropriate for the risk profile associated with the advice that we provide our clients for a home loan. Mortgage advisers do not handle client funds & most of the time our advice is free with us being remunerated by the lenders directly. Many advisers would argue that the “red tape” has driven up compliance costs and benefits Wellington regulators more than it does borrowers. Then we have the subject of Aggregator Monopolies with most banks refusing to deal with individual advisers directly. Advisers with their own FAP licences are being forced to belong to "Master FAPs" or aggregators. This forces them to pay steep membership fees and comply with duplicated regulatory layers. When have we ever heard FANZ or FAMNZ pushing back on this? At the end of the day associations like aggregators are businesses. A large part of why both FANZ and FAMNZ have not challenged the amount of overregulation that has occurred for mortgage advisers is because both associations have a commercial interest in attempting to control the training of mortgage advisers. FAMNZ even went as far as attempting to lobby the government to make membership of a professional association mandatory sighting adviser education standards. When we look at the recent live example of a main bank lender deciding to change its adviser renumeration model which has seen some advisers being significantly short-changed commission for earlier loans settled I have not once heard FANZ or FAMNZ directly challenge the bank in question on this. This lender is perfectly entitled to change the way it renumerates advisers however it cannot now renege on commission that was promised previously for loans settled. If there was ever a time where associations needed to be "shouting" about something that a bank has done to our industry then this is it. How can mortgage advisers possibly believe that associations are advocates for our industry when the above has been allowed to go unchallenged? When it comes to professional bodies been voluntary organisations it’s all about demonstrating value and relevancy. Associations have been shown to have no teeth with the lenders and next to zero recognition by the NZ consumer. With licensing’s arrival it was telling that the Financial Markets Authority didn’t made membership of an association compulsory to provide financial advice and none of the lenders in New Zealand require an adviser to be an association member to hold accreditation with them. Mortgage advisers in New Zealand now account for 55%+ of all the new lending business the banks write annually, and we got there without any help from associations thank you. If you are joining an industry body but their representation and collective voice are weak or inactive, you are paying for an empty brand.