FBAA chief executive Peter White is calling on the government to enact “unfinished matters” left over from the implementation of the NCCP.
Speaking to the Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Josh Frydenberg in Canberra last week, White said the government needs to act on upfront LMI disclosure.
“In February two years ago, which was the last time Treasury held its consulting committee to industry, it was agreed that LMI disclosure would be included in the Key Fact Sheet and it never happened,” White told
Australian Broker.
“A lot of people today still believe lenders mortgage insurance protects them if they come into default … It is all about disclosure and hopefully that will give a level of understanding to consumers, especially if it’s done in a condensed format. It’s not going to be a 20-page disclosure; it’s going to be a couple of paragraphs. It’s simple and it’s upfront.”
White says he would also like to see residentially secured business loans, that still fall outside of the NCCP, being covered when using the family home for security.
“Most of that lending these days is done as full-doc lending through the banks. It wouldn’t put any additional burden on any lender or broker if it was. It is not going to be hugely complicated to do it and it is going to add more protection for consumers,” he said.
“What we also want to see is a registration obligation put on all other brokers outside of the home loan sector - not licensing, not regulation, but just a registration listing that is held on ASIC’s database. Anyone outside of the home loan sector who is a broker has to register and show their registration number. That way it makes them more accountable and from a regulator’s point of view, if anything goes wrong there is means to try and track these people down.”
According to White, these changes are crucial to protecting the broking industry.
“We don’t want anyone in any part of our industry doing anything wrong anywhere. It affects our whole industry,” he told
Australian Broker.
“It [the recommendations] protects our industry. I see what we do as a high skilled profession and if we do not maintain that professionalism of our industry then the whole thing will go down the toilet.”
