The major furore last week centred on APRA’s announcement of its draft residential mortgage lending guidelines, which highlighted some mortgage broker practices as a risk.
In attempts to keep the housing market bubble in check,
APRA discouraged banks from offering high up-front commissions to brokers, to make sure incentives do not lead to extra risk taking.
Brokers, understandably, were up in arms after reading this.
“Someone woke up out of bed this morning and has worked out we ‘get paid too much’!” said
Old Broker, tongue-in-cheek.
Tony Broker agreed and said, “Typical ‘cheap shot’ at hard workers trying to make reasonable living.”
“… Anything a broker can do is simply a reflection of the process of the lender. But we are the ones held financially accountable,” noted
John from Geelong.
Lender thought APRA’s advice is contradictory.
“APRA are actively discouraging lenders from offering high LVR loans, but in many states, there is still a first home owners boost or incentive. Not only do we have conflicting paths, the assessments completed by APRA show very little resemblance to the real world, but as the regulating body, you cannot risk non-compliance as they can remove your ability to conduct business.”
This was seconded by
A Poor Reason Always, who said: “Obviously APRA has no idea what majority of professional brokers do and point out rouge traders as their 'experience'. Very insulting to majority of us. How much is the bank soliciting APRA staff? Perhaps this needs to be investigated. Always the soft target. Good time for
MFAA &
FBAA to step it up for us mere brokers.”
Melbourne Broker thought APRA staff need to do their research better. “Whoever wrote the guidelines at APRA are clearly out of touch with the real world, and not up to date with what has happened in with both brokers and financial planners in the last few years. I wonder if they have heard of NCCP…”
But Comment of the Week went to
Clarke Kent, for:
“More government intervention, no wonder small business is wilting on the vine in this country. Try this for size, as a broker no guaranteed salary, no holiday pay/leave loading, sick leave, salary continuance, suoperannuation and some bureaucrat sitting in APRA has the nerve to suggest upfronts should be trimmed! You cannot be serious!”
Thanks to all our commenters over the week. Read the article and more comments
here.
