A delegation from the New Zealand Mortgage Brokers Association (NZMBA) will head to Australia next month for an all day meeting with the Mortgage Industry Association of Australia (MIAA) in the next step towards creating a wider industry body.
That new group will likely be modeled on the MIAA.
"We know the scope of what we’ve got has to increase," says NZMBA chairman Brian Berry.
"We know we have to get enough muscle and funding behind the organisation for it to be able to handle issues coming up."
Prominent among these issues is the prospect of government regulation of the industry.
"We have to have a strong enough voice that’s going to be taken notice of by the government if and when they look at any financial services regulations."
The NZMBA has nearly 600 members.
Having rejected the idea of the NZMBA becoming a chapter of the Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association (which has about 1,500 members), "at this stage we feel that the best model is a new mortgage industry association similar to the model in Australia," Berry says.
Handling people’s investment money, as FPIA members do, is quite a different proposition from arranging their finance, Berry says. "We feel the size of our industry warranted its own organisation.
Up for discussion will be how the MIAA has handled certain issues, what processes they went through in forming the organisation.
The delegation will report back to NZMBA members with a suggested model for the new organisation by December.
