The association is likely to include lenders, lenders mortgage insurance companies and representatives of the major mortgage broking aggregators and franchises.
The NZMBA has been looking at these changes for some time and a delegation recently visited the Mortgage Industry Association of Australia (MIAA) to find out how it worked.
The delegation reported back to interested parties in New Zealand last week on its preferred model and funding requirements.
"Everyone was in general agreement about where the industry needs to head," Berry says. He doesn’t think the funding requirement to set up a permanent office and chief executive are huge.
"We’re not asking them to delve that deeply."
The new organisation will be modelled on the MIAA to some degree, although there are major differences in how the industry associations have developed in each country.
While the broking side of the business pushed the NZMBA’s development (always with lender representatives involved), the MIAA was formed by lenders.
"With our association, we’ve had to work at generating the buy-in from the lenders and we’re still doing that," Berry says.
Driving the creation of the new industry body is the need to gain more clout, particularly when approaching the government and regulatory bodies. The NZMBA has nearly 600 members.
It rejected the idea of the NZMBA becoming a chapter of the Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association that has about 1,500 members.
But no final decisions have been taken yet. "We’ve got a selling job to do on our members at some stage."
