Head to head: How has your aggregator supported you this year?

Education has been key for brokers as they navigate the changing environment due to COVID-19

By MPA

20 Jul 2020

Nathaniel Truong
Director
The Loan Lounge

“At the onset of COVID-19, we started to collect lender interview and ID requirements for each lender as everything was changing so quickly. When our BDM heard about this, Finsure took on the responsibility of collecting the different lender processes and spreading it to the network. I saw that as a great example of collaboration and meeting brokers’ needs during a stressful time. I have also seen an increase in communication from BDMs and a great training initiative by the Finsure Broker Academy called the ‘Festival of Learning’, which off ered multiple courses over a two-week period on wellness, managing stress, compliance and lender-specific policies.”

Grace Gardner
Mortgage broker
Aussie Home Loans

“Aussie has been an incredible provider of support and guidance throughout the COVID-19 situation. They acted quickly and positively to provide an abundance of information to assist brokers through a new way of working, whilst also taking the time to check in with us to find out how we were going personally. I personally found that Aussie’s support helped me to adapt smoothly to changes and offered me a sounding board for how to help customers, both new and existing, through a tough time.”

Florentin Ciritel
Finance and broking manager
Multi-Choice Home Loans

“AFG has been phenomenal in providing education and support on what the industry is able to off er now through things that are automated, and you need to automate as many things as you can so you can better focus on your clients’ objectives. You don’t want to be stuck in your business; you want to be always working on your business, and I think they’ve done well in that respect.“The support on the educational side, the marketing material provided on the websites, has been phenomenal – so much so that I’ve already exceeded the amount of education I need to do for the whole year in the first three months.”

The need for balance

FBAA managing director Peter White says the industry body has completely changed the delivery of educational content due to COVID-19. “All of our content is done digitally through webinars,” White says. “We’ve had fantastic engagement with our members in this manner, in that the amount of people we’re reaching now that are attending is higher than when we were in a face-to-face mechanism.”

While these platforms allow for interactive engagement as attendees can ask questions or raise issues, the mode of delivery isn’t quite the same as having physical contact. When social distancing is a thing of the past, the new normal for the FBAA will be a blend of digital content and physical interaction – a balance White anticipates for the mortgage broking industry in general.