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An industry forum is bringing together heads of major aggregators to challenge them on the transfer of trails.
IFBF head Stephen Dinte has told Australian Broker the group will hold a panel discussion on 26 April involving Mark Haron of Connective, Stephen Moore from Choice, Finsure's John Kolenda, Simon Dehne from LoanKit and Ballast's Frank Paratore. Dinte said the panel would give brokers the opportunity to ask aggregators about making trail books easily transportable, an issue he says is "vitally important".
"Personally, I'm getting trail from a couple different aggregators and if I were able to transfer all my old stuff to my current aggregator it would save me $1,000 a month. I know for a fact there are a lot of other brokers in similar positions," he said.
Dinte argued that there was no reason trails shouldn't be transferrable between aggregators.
#pb#"Given that it is something that can be done in the financial planning world, we're of the feeling there's no reason it couldn't happen other than the fact that aggregators would be feeling they're the ones who are going to miss out on revenue."
And this, Dinte said, isn't reason enough to shackle brokers to trail agreements.
"In a perfect world of competition, the aggregators offering the best service or best meeting the needs of their members are the ones who are going to attract brokers. If aggregators were in a position where they were losing a lot of people they would have to look internally to see where they're falling down and where they need to lift their game," he said.
Dinte said the call among brokers for transferrable trail is growing.
"People are starting to say enough is enough, and at some point you have to draw a line in the sand and say you're going to fight for your rights," he said.
And this groundswell is growing as more financial planners move into mortgage broking, Dinte suggested.
#pb#"Because they've been able to move their clients when they change dealer groups, they're saying, 'Hang on, why can't I do the same thing here?' And because more financial planners are coming in and saying this, then brokers are going, 'Shivers. If you can do it, why can't we?'"
Dinte said he hoped the IFBF forum would continue the groundswell among brokers, and lead to changes among aggregators.
"The main thing I want to come out of this meeting is an acknowledgement that aggregators are stopping this from happeniing. What's been happening is this buck-passing situation where aggregators say, 'We'd let you take the trail, but those rotten banks won't let us do it. It's no skin off [banks'] nose who they pay trail to. What do they care?"
Dinte predicted that if one aggregator were willing to change their position on the issue, others would follow suit.
"Once it opens up and some of them start, the others are going to have to follow suit," he said.
