Melbourne-based coaching firm Alphabroker Mentoring will be hosting an industry roundtable to delve into how the finance industry will adapt and evolve over the next five years.
The Alphabroker Industry Event will be held tomorrow (18 August) at Rydges on Swanston in Carlton, Melbourne and will feature a panel of thought leaders including brokers Carl Violeta of Violeta Finance, Mike Tait of Loantime Finance and Will Unkles of Forty40 Finance.
Also participating in the panel will be Heritage Bank head of broker distribution Michael Trencher, Homeloans general manager of branded partnerships Ray Hair,
ANZ senior manager of commercial origination Jim Ahern and Stephen Hale, head of marketing & communications at the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (
MFAA).
The panel will be broken up into three parts, focusing on brokers first, then lenders, and finally the MFAA, Alphabroker CEO Therese O’Neill told
Australian Broker.
Former Essendon footballer Tim Watson will present before the panel, talking on grit, courage, adapting to change, and staying at the top of your game. The event will close with a panel of nine lenders who will hold a
Dancing with the Stars type finance competition for the audience.
Tickets to the event have been sold out with 80 brokers attending. Eighty per cent of these have been less than two years in the industry, O’Neill said. This matches with the brokers on the panel who have all been in the industry for only two to three years, she said.
“All of them came from a non-finance industry background. Mike Tait came from mining, Will Unkles came from a corporate training background, and Carl Violeta owned his own men’s sporting wear clothes line. They’re all successful fulltime award-winning brokers today.”
O’Neill said that panel itself will cover a range of topics including:
- Working out of a commercial office versus working from home
- How the broking industry will grow in the future
- The benefits of diversification versus specialisation
- Expectations of broker market share over the next five years
- Predictions around future regulatory changes
- Time from lodgement to settlement as technology improves
- Trends for new to industry brokers in the upcoming years
- Forecasts for the total broker population and demographics
As for what she thought the future held for brokers, O’Neill highlighted a few changes regarding technology which she saw on the horizon.
“I think that they’ve got no choice but to bring in digital signatures at least for loan applications. I think that the verification of identity which is now outsourced will be captured digitally. That will drive great efficiencies in the broker model.
“I know that brokers will realistically get from lodgement to settlement in a 14 day period which is a massive improvement. At the moment, it’s an average of six weeks. I expect that some of the paperwork that the broker needs to supply at the moment to substantiate or verify data that’s captured on an application form will become unnecessary.”
Related stories:
Broking expert to build industry mentor community
Industry association partners with non-bank
Franchise unveils one stop broker community
