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“I think the MFAA acted in accordance with what they said they were going to do and that’s the right thing. They kept pushing the date back and at some point they have to draw a line in the sand and obviously they’ve done that. I think it’s appropriate.”
However, this is where White's support of the MFAA's policy ends.
“To me, the diploma is a joke. You speak to anyone that goes to university – they’ll say it takes 2-3 years to get a diploma, not three to five days. Requiring brokers to take the diploma is garbage as far as I’m concerned.”
He says the FBAA, which doesn’t require its broker members to complete the course, feels the diploma isn’t well suited to new brokers in particular.
“It’s predominantly focused on business running, not on consumer lending; 75% of the course is not related to home loans. If you want to do the diploma because you think it will be beneficial to you, we support you 100%. We’re not against the diploma – I’m just against enforcing it…If you have been lending for 5-10 years and you do that course, I think it’s good value. But if you’ve never done any lending in your life, it’s ridiculous.”
#pb# White says the FBAA has seen a ‘tremendous influx’ of membership applications as brokers break away from the MFAA.
“We’ve seen far more than [1,100] come over for a long period of time. I’ve seen some comments on blogs and so forth saying we’re an easy in - we’re not. We comply to the law that ASIC has set forth and around half have already done the diploma – they just don’t want to be told what they can and can’t do.”
He says many FBAA members who don’t do the diploma have different reasons.
“Many are accountants and so forth with a bachelor or master’s degrees – they think, ‘be damned if I’m going to do a diploma’ - and it’s not unreasonable. Others just haven’t finished it…I think it’s really, really wrong the way that [the MFAA] drums: ‘we’re better educated because we’ve got a five-day diploma’. I might as well go do a two-week course and become a brain surgeon.”
That said, White admits he fully supports the MFAA’s actions.
“They said they were going to do it. The market can’t complain about that. At the end of the day, they’ve done the right thing…and we’re looking forward to the influx of new members.”
