The CEO of one of the peak bodies for mortgage brokers in Australia has hit back at claims that mortgage brokers are leaving the industry.
Peter White OAM, CEO of the Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA), told Australian Broker that, contrary to recent claims in the media, the total number of active mortgage brokers was actually going up.
“We have done research and data that proves that the industry is growing, and the vast majority of our growth is from people outside the industry,” said White.
“When people turn around and say that the industry is contracting, it’s not correct. It will be in some places because people leave all the time, but the industry is growing.”
“Here at the FBAA, we measure from a net growth position: we grew 10.78%, which is after people leave and new people have been counted.”
The stories that the industry is contracted were based on the increasing numbers of mortgage brokers selling up their trail books and retiring, though for White, that number was still outweighed by the new brokers entering the industry.
“People leave the industry all the time, and for a whole host of reasons,” he said. “We found through 2019 that there was a drop, and that came off the back of the Royal Commission, because people said it was too hard.”
“But the reality was that they were getting out at some point, and they decided that they would do it then because they’d had a gut full. Instead of doing it next year, I’ll do it now.”
“People are always retiring and leaving, and that’s normal progression in our sector as it is in any business, so you have to look at what the inflow is like. One is exceeding the other, and the industry is growing.”
“At a time when the world has faced such significant challenges, let alone our industry and our country, here we have an industry that is writing more and more business, generally doing well and growing. That’s unusual.”
“People are coming into the industry from a broad range of sectors. Whether they were taxi drivers or retired bankers getting out of the mainstream banking industry and looking to do broking, it’s a wide range of backgrounds. You can’t say it’s coming from one place.”
“The reality is that people are seeing this as a great industry to get into. Aggregators are running recruitment drives and there’s various encouragements from different sectors for people to look at this as a viable industry. “
