MFAA credit adviser campaign off to 'astounding' start, but are brokers happy?

The MFAA’s campaign to rebrand brokers as ‘credit advisers’, launched last week, has gotten off to a positive start, according to CEO, Phil Naylor, who says visits to the MFAA’s borrowing website have increased dramatically.

“The consumer campaign with the theme ‘Life Changing Conversations’ has started really well. We’re seeing that visits to our…borrowing website have increased ten-fold - we’ve gone from about 30 a day to about 300 a day, which is astounding,” he says.

Playing into the campaign is the role of the MFAA approved credit adviser framework. Naylor says feedback from members has been ‘overwhelmingly positive’ and that the association is already seeing many embrace the new credit adviser terminology in branding.

“We started the MFAA approved credit adviser accreditation to run in tandem with this campaign and we’re really enthusiastic about the results so far from our members. We’re seeing more and more members using the logo and terminology and that really helps to leverage the whole campaign, because the way this campaign will work best is not only from our level but from the level of each broker – each MFAA approved credit adviser – using the terminology to ensure consumers see it at all levels and that’s trending really well.”

However, as comments on Australian Broker's article regarding the campaign launch last week demonstrate, not everyone in the industry is as thrilled as Naylor when it comes to the re-branding exercise.

Reader Steve McClure says he’s not knocking the MFAA for promoting the new terminology, but worries the term ‘MFAA approved credit adviser’ could end up dividing the industry.

“My strong reservation is that being called an ‘MFAA approved credit adviser’ firstly implies some sort of ownership by the MFAA and secondly divides, dilutes and confuses the message of who we are. I believe we need to preserve our message, not redefine it and certainly not appear to lose even more independence by being ‘branded’ MFAA. I'm proud that I have full MFAA membership, but they don't own me and they are here because of us brokers, not vice versa,” says McClure.

“Don't underestimate the impact or misconstrue the meaning of the word broker - it simply defines us acting diligently for a party to negotiate and facilitate. Advice is part of that, don't be afraid of it, but don't start reinventing our role by suddenly being in charge of indefinables like ‘making dreams happen’. My PI doesn't cover that.”