Newpark Broking Services is being run by McLeod, who is managing director of the mortgage group and also winner of the North Auckland region Mortgage Broker of the Year award. Other directors are Darren Gannon, managing director of Newpark Financial Services, Jon Purdey McLeod's partner from Edge and Paul Wang from Mortgage Success.
Newpark Broking Services has agreements in place with all major banks as well as NZF Group, General Financial and Sovereign and is in discussion with other lenders, says McLeod.
The monthly membership fee for the mortgage service will be $350 plus GST. McLeod says this includes the Finware iLend broker software package.
Newpark Financial Services is an established dealer group in the insurance business, providing aggregation-type arrangements for insurance brokers and advisers. The new mortgage business will give mortgage brokers access to an insurance referral service using a wide range of insurance companies.
McLeod has been in mortgage broking for more than 10 years but not belonged to a mortgage aggregation group before.
He has 13 brokers signed up so far and expects this to climb to about 40 by Christmas.
Increasing numbers of mortgage brokers are diversifying into insurance but Gannon says that he has discovered there is demand among mortgage brokers for a different type of service than is available from existing mortgage groups.
Newpark aims to offer mortgage brokers a competitive share of commissions earned on insurance referrals but Gannon says that commission should not be the main reason for considering the new group. The group also offers a wide range of support services.
Gannon says that mortgage brokers are keen to have access to an insurance service that enables them to give clients a choice of insurance company. The trend among mortgage aggregation groups has been to link with just one or two insurers.
McLeod says Newpark Broking Services will be run "for brokers by brokers".
