The economy is a primary voting consideration for the mortgage lending industry, a new election poll has revealed, with broker remuneration also a key issue.
The findings come in a major new election poll from Momentum Intelligence (one of the divisions of Momentum Media Group, the parent company of The Adviser), which has revealed voter preferences from professionals across a number of sectors, including mortgage lending.
The Industry Insight Report: Election Edition involved a survey of 2,842 professionals across seven sectors between 1 and 15 December 2021.
This content is available exclusively to
The Adviser premium members.
Out of a sample of 372 mortgage lending professionals (including brokers, lenders and aggregators) responding to the poll, 71 per cent indicated a voting preference for the Liberal-National Coalition, compared to 22 per cent favouring the Labor Party. Seven per cent of respondents said they didn’t know how they would vote in the upcoming May 2022 election.
The majority (59 per cent) favoured Scott Morrison as Prime Minister, while 18 per cent said they would prefer Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and 23 per cent said they didn’t know.
Alongside real estate agents, the mortgage lending industry had the greatest margin of preference for retaining Mr Morrison in the top spot over Mr Albanese.
The mortgage lending sector revealed that the economy, small-business interests and taxation were their top priorities for the next election.
Additionally, a significant number of mortgage lending sector participants highlighted concerns relating to the review of broker remuneration and trail commissions, and the impact on consumer outcomes.
“I am gravely worried about any potential changes to broker trail or remuneration. If we are to lose trail or move to a fee-for-service model we won’t be able to afford to keep our staff and will end up being negatively impacted greater,” a participant identifying as a Coalition voter said.
Several respondents, including another Liberal voter, a Labor supporter and a participant who was undecided, indicated their vote would be determined by the attitude of parties to broker remuneration.
“Leave our remuneration model ALONE!” a Labor voter wrote.
“Enforcing a fee-for-service model would be highly detrimental to consumers and the entire broker industry. If Labour persist in their attempt to enforce this, it would absolutely change my vote.”
However, Stephen Jones, shadow assistant treasurer and minister for financial services and superannuation, recently confirmed the existing arrangements for broker remuneration would remain unchanged under a Labor government.
The party had pivoted after it proposed to ban trail commissions paid to mortgage brokers and to cap upfront commissions at 1.1 per cent in its response to the banking royal commission in 2019.
One of the final recommendations from commissioner Kenneth Hayne had suggested that brokers remuneration should be changed, first by prohibiting lenders from paying trail commissions to mortgage brokers for new loans.
The second suggested the move was to then block lenders from paying other commissions to mortgage brokers.
As the polling undertaken by Momentum Intelligence took place before the Labor MP’s recent repositioning on remuneration, it is unclear if broker preferences would have since shifted.
Meanwhile, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Momentum Media late last year that upfront and trail commissions were expected to be reviewed in the second half of 2022.
If you would like to read more about industry voter preferences, you can find the report here.
