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Two industry leaders who were panellists on a controversial broker survey have condemned the findings for falsely representing the third-party channel.
FBAA chief executive Peter White and Smart Lending director Melissa Gielnik questioned the relevance of the survey because they said it was based on false methodology.
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Choice, together with the Consumer Action Law Centre and Financial Rights Legal Centre, last week called on the federal government to increase funding to ASIC so that it can begin investigations into the third-party channel.
The call follows a mystery shop of 15 Mortgage Choice, Aussie and AFG brokers, which found undisclosed commissions and bad information being provided, according to Choice.
Mr White said Choice falsely presented its findings as an industry-wide report.
“This is a report on three companies – not a review of the industry,” he told The Adviser. “It only touches 15 brokers – it’s such a miniscule sample, so it’s difficult to give it any strong credibility.
“I don’t even think it’s a fair analysis of the companies involved.”
Mr White said that for Choice to call on the federal government to fund an ASIC investigation into the industry based on their findings “is so far wrong that it’s not funny”.
“ASIC will take care of it themselves – that’s their job,” he said.
Ms Gielnik said the results of Choice’s survey were not reflective of the case studies and the individual brokers.
“I didn’t rate any of the brokers poorly. In fact, I rated a few of them as aspirational,” she told The Adviser.
“I didn’t think the surveys were as bad as Choice made them out to be.”
Ms Gielnik said panellists were not provided with background information on the five mystery shoppers on their attitude and understanding when dealing with brokers.
“We knew where they lived and how old they were, but the results only reflect their perception of what the broker has told them on the phone or face-to-face.”
“As a broker, you don’t do long hours and put in the hard yards without being passionate about it, and I think that was lost in the article,” she said.
Ms Gielnik said Choice was also concerned about the number of options brokers provided clients.
“In some cases, there is only one option for the client,” she added.
Mortgage Choice, Aussie and AFG refuted the survey’s claims that their brokers are not complying with credit rules.
[Related: Industry bodies hit back at RBA]
