AFG creates new broker role

Joseph Khal has been promoted to the new position of head of broker experience, effective immediately. 

Mr Khal has been employed as a business relationship manager at AFG since May 2017. 

Prior to this, Mr Khal was a business development manager at CBA.  

His new position will be solely focused on broker experience.

AFG’s head of sales and distribution, Chris Slater, expressed that he believed the new role would help ensure that AFG provides what its brokers need, adding that Mr Khal was a “perfect fit” for the position. 

“Joseph gets results, is fantastic with people, is super passionate about the broking channel and loves helping brokers build their businesses,” Mr Slater said.  

“Joseph has acquired an intimate knowledge of how broker businesses work, is across the technology transformation happening in our industry, and, most importantly, customers’ expectations of their broker,” he added.

Mr Slater highlighted that Mr Khal had been “furthering his professional knowledge of business improvement techniques and has been refining his skills by completing a business management course, and an industry-leading commercial lending program to prepare himself for the new role”.

Welcoming his new position, the new head of broker experience said he was “excited to be appointed into a role that’s sole focus is broker experience”, and that he’s “looking forward to working with AFG brokers across the country”. 

“The role of a broker and the support they need to serve their customers has changed dramatically over the past few years. The team at AFG is working hard to supercharge the way we support our brokers to stay in front of those changes,” Mr Khal continued.

“AFG is investing significantly for the future, and it’s exciting to be part of that.”

As well as creating a new broker experience position, the aggregator announced earlier this month that it was expanding its mental health support program for broker members across the country. 

The company has also been ramping up for growth, having entered into a strategic alliance with neo-lender Volt Bank.

The alliance will see AFG Home Loans distribute a digital white labelled mortgage product (funded by Volt and available to AFG’s network of more than 2,975 brokers); leverage Volt’s Banking as a Service (BaaS) offering by making deposit products available to AFG customers and utilising its tech to digitise the credit decisioning of AFG Securities; and provide a white label personal finance manager (PFM) app to AFG Home Loans and AFG broker customers.

Volt and AFG have said they will also work together to develop and distribute further Volt white label products to AFG brokers in the future, including personal and business loans.

[Related: AFG expands mental health service to brokers]