The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (
MFAA) has said its key barrier to success as one of the major broker associations is relevance.
In her newly released
Pulse Report, the chief executive of the MFAA, Siobhan Hayden, identified relevance with customers, aggregators and lenders as the association’s key barrier to success.
This finding comes from Hayden’s
Paving the Road sessions she embarked on when first entering the job last November, which facilitated the engagement of 1,000 brokers from around Australia in face-to-face sessions.
According to Hayden, in order to stay relevant, the MFAA needs to adapt to the time constraints brokers face when running a small business in the modern world.
“This key learning deeply informs the MFAA. Due to the constraint on time, customers will continually review the ‘opportunity cost’ of attending events versus working in their business. It demonstrates that unless we structure events that are viewed as ‘meaningful, helpful, interesting, unpins a cause that brokers are passionate about, or just plain fun’ finance brokers will not choose to attend,” she in the
Pulse Report.
Hayden also said the association also needs to better address the vast age groups of MFAA members in order to remain relevant and offer the best service for its brokers. Currently, she said, the MFAA has four different generational groups as members: baby boomers, gen X, gen Y and millennials.
“Baby Boomers have traditionally been the most actively involved in the MFAA and it is therefore reasonable to note that most of the current decisions and Association structures are geared almost entirely towards this group. Furthermore, research suggests that Associations have traditionally attributed a low importance ranking to services or initiatives that young people valued as important.
“If the MFAA is to thrive into the future, it must attract and retain other generations. The MFAA culture needs to reflect a generationally diverse, welcoming an engaging community.”
