Outsourcing firm Virtual Business Partners has grown to more than 150 staff in its quest to help mortgage brokers become more efficient in managing their back-end processes.
Co-founder and director David Carney has spent more than 20 years in the finance industry working in mortgage broking and financial planning. While consulting for small and large firms within this space, he found that many businesses struggled with managing the back-end.
“Not many firms really understand what it costs to deliver their services. They tend to under-resource because Australian costs are so expensive,” he told
Australian Broker.
“In general with all the add-on costs, brokers tend to under-resource. They’re then not very effective because they still get pulled back into the admin.”
With this in mind, Virtual Business Partners was born. In 2013, the firm completed a trial run with a firm that focused on both mortgage broking and financial planning and grew the client’s business from two to seven staff.
Virtual Business Partners now works with around 50 clients within the financial services industry in Australia, Carney said.
One key differentiator is the fact they provide a dedicated team to each client.
“You need to see that the staff members we provide are an extension of your business,” he said. This allows the outsourced staff to help brokers in a manner that is comfortable to them.
“Different advisors have all got slight preferences. Most brokers will not be running massive businesses so they still want to add a little bit of their flare to it.”
As well as providing support with marketing and building databases, Carney said Virtual Business Partners helped brokers prepare for the loan review process.
“When I talk to a lot of brokers, they’re too busy to service their existing clients. However they know there’s a lot of value there and they know they’ve got an obligation to do that.”
Additionally, services are offered for loan processing, data entry, evaluations, follow-ups and more. This includes creating settlement letters, an addition which Carney said brokers typically don’t have time for despite wanting to offer them to clients.
“Yes, they will get settlement letters from their lenders but we’ll summarise all of that. We’ll ring up and get the bank accounts, loan payments, dates and summarise it for the client. We’ll then update that into the database and finally do a compliance check.”
This involves making sure that credit guides have been given and that all documents have been signed and flagged, he said.
Related stories:
Fast track training to boost broker skills and revenue
Breakthrough loan software to strengthen broker proposition
Collaboration to boost broker client retention
.jpg)
