A lot has changed over the past three months, presenting challenges for both brokers and lenders
For Brokers, COVID-19 has had a huge impact on business, and the “new normal” for mortgage professionals is evolving every day. As a lead up to Broker Connect, MPA’s virtual forum dedicated to the mortgage industry and creating digital connections, we look at the issues that lenders, aggregators, and brokers around Australasia are focusing on, asking questions about, and overcoming to help clients through this difficult time.
Resilience and adaptability are key in the current environment, says ING head of third-party distribution and direct mortgages Glenn Gibson.
Agility is something the AMA-winning bank has built into its structure, allowing it to adapt swiftly to rapid change against the backdrop of COVID-19.
MPA spoke with Gibson about the importance of being agile as well as the way lenders can strengthen the lender/broker relationship leading into BID.
Alacrity in customer care
A lot has changed over the past three months, says Gibson, and this has presented challenges for both brokers and lenders.
“We’ve always cared for our customers at ING, that goes without saying, but going through the last three months, there’s a number of customers whose personal circumstances have changed,” he says.
“I think the last few months have certainly been about making sure that our existing customers are looked after and cared for.”
Building agility into its structure has been key to the bank’s ability to meet this challenge head on.
“You’ve got to have a structure in place to allow you to be agile and that’s everything, from a product, to a management, to an oversight,” he says.
“Unless you have that attitude where you’re happy and you want to encourage change and rapid change, well then it just doesn’t happen.”
Moving forward with BID
With a new era of BID on the horizon, Gibson says lenders could act to strengthen their relationships with brokers by learning to understand what drives them and what makes them successful as well as the role lenders play in this.
“There’s too many times that you have a PAYG person trying to tell a self-employed person how they should operate,” he says.
“It just doesn’t work, because when your entire business is based on your own commitment it’s a much different world.
“We try to understand, truly down to each one of our BDM or customer broker facing people, how brokers work, how do they interact, how do they operate – knowing there’s a big difference between a PAYG person and a self-employed person.”
He says realistically banks have had best interest duty for quite some time, however, it applies to the lender’s own product. The challenge for mortgage brokers will be to judge which product from which lender is most suitable for the client based on their goals and objectives.
“Being able to understand what makes one lender different to the other is key to ING’s support of brokers,” he says.
“We’re very transparent where we don’t want to operate, but we’re also very transparent on where we could fill that best interest duty for the customer.”
Adaptability and resilience go hand in hand
To brokers, Gibson says it is crucial to keep pushing forward while adapting to change.
“I think brokers already know this, but resilience is key.”
He says while many of us have taken a different path to the one we set out on at the start of the year, it is still possible to arrive at the same destination we set out for – albeit via a different route.
“Back the convictions that you’ve made at the beginning of the year, be agile in your approach and still become the most sought-after distribution network in the country for Australians wanting to take out a home loan.”
Join MPA and Key Media for Broker Connect – a virtual forum dedicated to the mortgage industry – as we look at the current issues and network with each other
