The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (
MFAA) has met with the Fairfax journalist who published the inflammatory article about mortgage brokers, ‘Mortgage broker salad days are numbered’.
The meeting with the
Australian Financial Review (
AFR) journalist, which took place at Fairfax’s head office in Sydney yesterday, was successful, according to the MFAA. The journalist admitted that he was “not fully across the operations of the industry” and expressed willingness to engage to “get a better grasp of it”, the association said.
“We were pleased that we could follow up on our commitment to the industry to meet with this journalist to discuss the basis of the article,” the MFAA said.
“He was willing to sit down with the MFAA to find out more about the data that supports our consumer advantages.”
The article, published by the
AFR last month, claims: “Brokers live in fear that commissions will be outlawed”. It also claims the standards of the mortgage broking industry “continue to lag” those imposed on other sectors, namely financial planning.
The MFAA provided Fairfax with its Industry Intelligence Service (IIS) Report, which shows broker numbers and revenues, to assist the mainstream media in gathering a more realistic view of the industry.
“As discussed at the
AFG broker days, the industry has to improve its ability to get this message across to media so that the consumer benefits of a broker’s interaction are more clearly understood,” MFAA head of marketing, Stephen Hale said.
“[The journalist] was impressed that we could produce real data to support these claims – MFAA data – rather than random opinions that are not generally respected by the media.
“He said that he had a different view thinking that our industry was primarily a referral-driven operation and noted that these growth figures showed that we are delivering a better option for consumers.”
