An aggregator is celebrating after having just completed a “ripping half year, the best in our 19 years of operations,” as put by the group’s head.
Melbourne-based National Mortgage Brokers recorded settlement growth of 16.5% for the half year and annual loan book growth of 8.0%.
“It’s certainly our most productive half year of recruitment of new broker businesses and new loan writers,” managing director Gerald Foley added.
“Our recruitment efforts of the last couple of years have seen good quality brokers joining our group, who have been able to add their settlement volume to our numbers.
“We’ve also seen some really strong improvement in some of the brokers that have been with us for a period of time, and are now starting to see some good results come through.”
New broker recruitment for the half year saw 37 new mortgage broker agreements (or businesses) and 65 loan writer appointments, bringing the total number of broker agreements to 255 and loan writers at nMB to 491.
Foley said during COVID-19 nMB had learnt a lot about how to engage with people using digital means, including meeting, training and onboarding brokers in Victoria and across Australia.
“We were really happy to hit those strong numbers in such a difficult time.”
“There were many brokers who found that our more hands-on approach to working with our brokers sat comfortably.”
NMB’s philosophy is about “taking brokers on the broker-to-broker business journey”.
“We believe there’s five parts to building a successful broker business – people, planning, process, partners and premises,” said Foley.
The sales team is also growing, with the recent addition of another partnership manager in Victoria, Anthony Wickremasinghe. A further partnership manager for NSW/ACT will soon be appointed.
Foley said digital engagement would continue in 2021, saving both brokers and customers time.
He also hoped lender turnaround times would improve.
“It’s not a good enough experience for brokers or their customers to be waiting sometimes into weeks for an answer on a loan application.”
