At their annual conference held on Friday, the
FBAA announced they will be partnering with education provider, Australis College to offer two scholarships for students interested in pursuing a career in finance or mortgage broking.
The scholarship program, worth $17,000, will see the students complete their Certificate IV and Diploma as well as providing a two years one-on-one mentoring program.
Peter White, CEO of the FBAA, said that over the past 12 months, the FBAA has been working with student association, Student Edge to promote finance and mortgage broking as a career path. This new scholarship program shows the FBAA’s commitment to further investing in the next generation of brokers, he told
Australian Broker.
“The industry has never had a career path to become a finance broker, so through Student Edge, we have put out a video that has reached over 600,000 high school students. The video promotes finance and mortgage broking as a career option to students thinking about careers in finance or accounting,” he told
Australian Broker.
“As we did that, we built in an initial apprenticeship program, which lead to discussions with Australis College to then bring forth a proper scholarship so they can come straight out of school – whether it be high school or university – and they can jump in and actually have courses designed to take them on that journey as a career path and to bring them into the industry with more than just the basic knowledge they need to actually become a finance broker.”
White says he hopes this scholarship program will transform the next generation of brokers.
“I want students to be able to come through this scholarship and not only be better brokers because their knowledge base will be so much higher, but so they can become our future industry leaders – that’s where I see this scholarship program taking us.”
Sally Wernham, National Sales Manager at Australis College, says that students often have a misconception when it comes to finance broking as a career.
“I think that there is a misconception that working in the finance broking sector is very mathematical and so for some, particularly if they don’t already have some degree of qualification, they probably see it as a bit inhibitive and hard to get into and they don’t necessarily understand it. This program aims to make it more accessible."
Wernham said this scholarship will not only help finance and mortgage broking be a more accessible career path, but it will benefit the industry as a whole.
“Businesses will be getting someone that has the knowledge and skill set to run a business. These students are not only getting the skills to be a finance broker, but they are getting business skills as well – such as writing business plans, understanding marketing and understanding the importance of the sales process and relationship management. It’s more than just the raw technical skills associated with finance,” she told
Australian Broker.
