David Mead, director of Flexible-mortgage.net, believes that the added scrutiny of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the need for qualifications such as CeMAP have put people off becoming mortgage brokers.
He said: “Bringing in new people is increasingly difficult as many would like to come into the industry but the FSA requirements make it more difficult. We set up an academy 16 months ago to help bring people through but there is currently not enough new blood in the mortgage industry.”
Rob Clifford, managing director of Mortgageforce, believes regulation has had an impact but it has changed the way brokers recruit, rather than made it more difficult.
“When we set up in 2000, there was a lot of fluidity within the market and we found it easy to recruit intermediaries. However, by 2004, it was tougher due to ‘Mortgage-Day’ as brokers were staying put in their jobs and there were a lot of networks supporting brokers on their own.
“The market is out there though, and more than half our new brokers are people we have turned into brokers, such as teachers and trainee accountants.”
Drew Wotherspoon, head of communications at John Charcol, shared this sentiment.
He said: “The impact of regulation is an interesting one but our anecdotal evidence says it hasn’t had too much influence. However, when we were recruiting for Charcol Direct, we found you cannot constantly recruit from within the industry. Often you are paying money on top of money to get a guy who left you six months before. What we have tried to do is recruit people with quality sales experience and teach them about the mortgage industry.”
