Aggregator ignites branding debate

According to Mr Osbourne, a branded position creates a genuine alignment of the parties – there is buy-in from both business and broker to partner and succeed together.

"Brand will be the holy grail of tomorrow's mortgage broking industry," he said.

"One of the great myths never published was the question over wholesale or retail? Whether wholesale aggregation models would ever successfully build and support (concurrently) hundreds of independent mortgage broking businesses under one umbrella or whether the retail branded models would prevail.

"History will show that few mortgage broking businesses under the wholesale aggregation banner have gone on to become anything other than small boutique businesses. Wholesalers have demonstrated an inability to deliver the broad array of unique marketing, online, lead generation and CRM capabilities for each of their independent mortgage broker customers.

"The growing importance of the aggregator however remains with a changing emphasis in this new regulated environment. Aggregators play a leading role in managing lender relationships, industry best practice and increasingly, providing compliance services as the industry professionalises."

According to Mr Osbourne, business partnerships need to be in alignment – the overriding motive of all parties needs to be congruent.

"A myriad of independent brands will always struggle to collectively market, drive online penetration, successfully generate leads and crucially cross sell," he said.

But not everyone agrees.

Independent brokerages that aggregate under wholesale aggregators such as FYI Group, Finance Made Easy and Ethical Lending Concepts, to name but a few, have gone on to be very successful businesses in their own right.

In the 2010-11 financial year, Ethical Lending Concepts wrote more than $340 million in loans and currently have ambitions to settle $1 billion a year.