by Jenny Ruth
Campbell joined Finsure in July and says the company has been working to get its customer relationship management (CRM) software adapted to suit NZ conditions and practices.
The CRM is “a critical part” of the aggregator's offering and so it was important to take the time to get it right, she says.
“We own it and it was developed in-house in Sydney. It's being updated constantly with new features” as well as the updates from lenders on interest rates and other such information.
“It took quite a lot of work to make it appropriate for the NZ advice process,” Campbell says.
She says she's probably tried every CRM offering in the NZ market over the years.
“I can, hands-on-heart, say it's the best one I've seen.” Not only is it easy to use - “just follow your nose” - but it covers all local compliance requirements, provides mortgage-specific training modules and can handle just about every configuration of brokerage businesses.
So, now she's busy talking to local advisers about what Finsure has to offer them.
In Australia, Finsure is growing “at a phenomenal rate” with it now having passed 3,000 members, up from about 2,800 when Campbell joined, and the trajectory for 2024 is looking very positive, she says.
The Mortgage Mag's survey of brokers suggest a very high retention rate for the aggregators in the NZ market through 2023 with only 8.3% saying they had changed groups during the year, down from 10.5% the previous year and more than 15% in 2021.
Campbell says she thinks that's more reflective of the lack of options in our market and that she hopes to bring more competition to the local market.
“The environment is definitely changing. I think next year we're going to see an awful lot of movement between groups,” she says.
“The thing about competition is it brings about better results for the client.”
Campbell observes that a lot of advisers “got sold a sausage” when the Financial Advice Provider (FAP) regime came into force and thought they should become FAPs themselves.
“But really it doesn't add a lot of value to your business” and the costs of maintaining that status can be onerous, she says.
NZ is likely to follow the Australian pattern which has seen many advisers opting to operate from their aggregator's FAP, rather than trying to maintain their own.
But Finsure is happy to support both FAPs and brokers wishing to come under Finsure's FAP licence, she says.
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“But really it doesn't add a lot of value to your business” and the costs of maintaining that status can be onerous, she says.”
“NZ is likely to follow the Australian pattern which has seen many advisers opting to operate from their aggregator's FAP, rather than trying to maintain their own.”
The above statement from Australian aggregator Finsure’s head of its NZ operations is the complete opposite of what she was saying when she was previously chief executive of The Mortgage Supply Company prior to aggregator Astute Financial acquiring them. Many mortgage advisers at the time elected to join the mortgage supply company because Jenny was so passionate about advisers having and operating their own FAP licence as opposed to us working under an aggregator’s. Fast forward to 2023 and Jenny has now changed her tune completely.
If Finsure are thinking mortgage advisers in New Zealand who have their own FAP licence will now have “second thoughts” like Jenny they are sorely mistaken. Mortgage advisers who backed themselves to run and operate their own FAP licence recognised some time ago that aggregators don’t demonstrate significant value to us anymore with the industry now licenced. Many of us within the industry have been providing advice to our clients for over 20+ years and working under an aggregator’s FAP Licence is just not something we see as adding value to our business. Gone are the days of aggregators been the single source of PI insurance and anybody can now purchase a fit for purpose CRM right off the internet which is ISO security compliant and has the added benefit of not being controlled by the aggregator themselves. From a “risk” perspective there is also statically far less likelihood of a complaint happening for a 1–10-person mortgage advisory business holding its own FAP licence than this business been an authorised body among many others working under an aggregator’s licence.