Ongoing education as part of mandatory professional membership a priority - FAMNZ
A new country manager for the Finance and Mortgage Advisers Association of New Zealand (FAMNZ) is expected to be appointed in the next fortnight.
Tuesday, August 26th 2025, 9:10AM 
4 Comments
by Sally Lindsay
About 100 applications were received for the Auckland-based role left vacant by the resignation of FAMNZ’s first country manager Leigh Hodgetts.
One of the priorities for leading the 196-member organisation will be talking to the Government about ongoing education through mandatory professional industry association membership.
After aspiring advisers have obtained the New Zealand Certificate in Financial Services (level 5), registered with the FMA, and linked to a FAP that is part of a recognised dispute resolution scheme, there is no ongoing education.
FAMNZ managing director Peter While, who also heads up the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia and the International Mortgage Brokers Federation, which he formed in 2016, says a white paper from the federation’s recent Dublin conference will be released in the next fortnight looking at the issue globally.
“It is about ensuring that mortgage advisers and brokers around the world are properly educated and informed to do the job they are meant to do. It is critically important there is ongoing education.”
As there is no mandatory obligation in New Zealand, White says his concern is that advisers’ knowledge, which may be sound, is not evolving as the industry and rules change.
“It’s exceptionally important advisers keep up professional development hours and unless it is mandated people can be a little bit lax on that.”
He says one way to make sure it is happening is to assist the FMA in what it is doing and take a position on mandatory professional association membership along with a disciplinary process it can run through the association.
“We can also make sure new entrants into the industry are properly mentored so they get the right foundation of knowledge on which to build a career and business.”
From a global perspective, the international federation has had “fantastic buy-in”, White says.
“Once the white paper is released every country in the federation will be taking to back to their politicians and Government, pointing out the issues and, more importantly, saying here are the solutions.
“It’s not just about taking problems as we see them to Governments, but also the solutions and we have those solutions as a global professional group.”
Membership
While FAMNZ membership is at nearly 196 from the about 2,100 New Zealand mortgage advisers, White says his goal is to have it nearer 350-400 by June next year and keep going from there.
Until FMA registration for advisers was introduced there were about 3,500 throughout the country. Many retired or jumped ship to another career and the number of active advisers has fallen dramatically.
Although FAMNZ membership is still small, White says the association’s lobbying and regulator engagement is about 18 months to two years in front of itself and it's been highly successful with the Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister, the FMA and the Commerce Commission.
Mortgage adviser issues are similar around the world and through country associations being able to share information, submissions and public papers, it has helped them better position conversations at a Government level.
For example when the FMA was formulating its Fair Outcomes for Consumers & Markets regulations, White says a large part of the document was based on two pieces of
Australian legislation – RG209 responsible lending obligations and RG273 best interest duty.
One of the pieces was written by an expert, who sits behind the Finance Brokers Association of Australasia, when he was with ASIC, the Australian equivalent of the FMA.
“There are some differences between New Zealand and Australia but a lot of the legislative framework is really similar,” White says.
“It is important for advisers to understand FAMNZ is a specialist advocacy group for the sector only. “We're not advocating in the planning or insurance space or anything else. We're advocating in the mortgage advice area as an area, especially to make sure that the understanding of that sector is clearly understood.”
| « Market share high for first home buyers | Quick strategies needed for banking competition » |
Special Offers
Comments from our readers
This announcement by FAMNZ leaves a bitter taste in the mouth for many advisers across the country. Our industry has been licenced. The NZ consumer has never been as well protected as they are today when they require financial advice on a home loan. The quality of mortgage advice that customers now receive has been improved significantly across the industry and yet because a professional association originating from Australia can’t manage to grow their membership here, they now expect all advisers to be forced into joining a voluntary organisation like FAMNZ.
It’s disappointing to read comments from FAMNZ’s managing director saying some NZ advisers are unable to keep up with their professional development and that mandatory professional industry association membership is the only way to ensure advisers meet their licensing obligations. Mr White is also saying NZ advisers’ knowledge, which may be sound, is not evolving as the industry and rules change. By who’s determination is that exactly? FAMNZ?
Once again, a third party is trying to tell the mortgage advisers of this country that we can’t function without their support. How many times are advisers going to have to listen to the same broken record? This announcement by FAMNZ will be seen by mortgage advisers for exactly what it is. It has very little to do with raising education standards for advisers and instead is all about an Australian based voluntary organisation that hasn’t been able to grow its membership in New Zealand like it expected to.
Respectfully I'm not sure that Peter White and FAMNZ did their homework when deciding to form another professional body in New Zealand for mortgage advisers. It’s worth remembering that FANZ is an amalgamation of both the PAA & NZMBA who made the decision to merge their two organisations based in part on lack of membership. FANZ’s former chief executive Katrina Shanks was quoted in late 2023 as saying then that she doubted there was room for another association in NZ. I guess the above realisation has now dawned on FAMNZ hence them announcing plans to lobby the government to make all advisers to be part of a professional body sighting education standards. It seems we have an outfit from Australia that decided it wanted a piece of the adviser market in New Zealand and things haven’t gone as planned for them. Essentially, they have arrived too late to the party. When it comes to professional bodies been voluntary organisations it’s ALL about demonstrating value and relevancy. With the mortgage adviser industry now licenced many advisers struggle to understand where exactly associations fit in the regulatory landscape. Clearly the FMA did not see a benefit to the NZ consumer in an adviser been made to be part of a professional body, not when the adviser must now be licenced to provide financial advice.
Both the banks & insurance companies & FAPS offer sufficient training per year for sufficient CPD Accreditation.
Perhaps FAMZ needs to look at themselves & membership fees & why only 196 out of 2100 advisers have signed up.
I am picking that advisers are not seeing results from FAMZ
Sign In to add your comment
|
|
Printable version |
|
Email to a friend |
Standards have been lifted across the industry by licensing’s arrival but advisers having to pay yet more money annually to belong to voluntary organisations that have been shown to have no teeth with the lenders and next to zero recognition by the NZ consumer is simply not logical. Associations are businesses at the end of the day so if they want members then they need to be demonstrating value and relevancy. This attempt by FAMNZ now to lobby the Government about ongoing education through mandatory professional industry association membership smacks of commercial self-interest.
Maybe it’s different for insurance and investment advisers but as far as the mortgage adviser industry goes associations have clearly been missing in action for years now. Some would argue decades. They were silent when banks first increased adviser clawbacks and when banks tried to shut us out of the refix process. When we needed associations the most to be vocal for us as an industry, they were silent.