Brokers back aggregator, slam bank service

Earlier this week, Mr Haron told The Adviser that brokers had greatly improved their efficiency and conversions. As such, the onus is now on Australia’s lenders to improve their service.

The issue around application quality has been a bone of contention for the industry for some years and it has been a focal point for lenders that have pushed for greater efficiencies via the third party channel.

But while many have accepted that there was work to be done when the issue first came to the fore during the GFC, there is a growing gulf between many brokers and lenders as to the state of play today.

Aussie franchisee Warren Stapleton was quick to back Mr Haron and was one of the 30 brokers that voiced their opinion.

“I have been in the industry for the past 18 years and have never experienced such a poor knowledge and skills base with support staff, file managers and credit officers across a broad range of lenders,” he said.

"Perhaps the lenders need to clean up their own backyard before they start blaming brokers for conversion rates. Across a panel of 16 lenders I have at least 12 where I have never met or been contacted by a relationship manager. Comments like this infuriate me.”

A major theme that ran throughout the broker response was the shortcomings of lenders when it came to following the notes that accompanied applications.

“Lenders do not read the comments and items are sometimes missed or misinterpreted by poorly trained Lending staff whom are just ticking off required listed items,” one commentator said.

“Most skilled/experienced brokers will use the lender's own checklist to confirm docs, thus leaving the lender’s own process’ to blame,” they continued.

Another criticism of lenders was the lack of support they provide to their broker partners.

“Bad submissions are a result of the lenders cutting back on training,” one broker said.

"If I had a business relying on a salesman to bring in the deal, I would certainly train them to my expectations. That way my product would have the best chance of being selected....it is common business sense.”

But while brokers believe there are a lot of areas where the banks can pick up their game, they are not blind to the fact that there are areas where they too can improve.

"Both brokers and lenders can do it better for sure. In fact if we were serious about solving this issue we would start with a blank sheet and design a much more customer and user friendly system but that would take years,” one broker wrote.

"Neither myself nor the lender technology is perfect. Documents occasionally go missing, or the assessor misses them in the package or I miss including something. It happens."

“One of the best things one of my lenders did, was start ringing you to go through any issue they had. It meant problems, regardless of who or what caused them, were fixed within a few minutes rather than a few days.”