You’ll be pleased to hear that the Mortgage Industry Association of Australia is on a campaign to ramp up the qualifications of mortgage brokers. Just because all they do is sell loans and fill out forms – and otherwise manage the process by which you apply for a loan – is no reason we shouldn’t want them to have higher and higher levels of qualification. There’s already a process of professional development, according to which mortgage brokers must get something like 14 professional development points per year. Peach’s brokers can get 8 points for learning how to write commercial loans, and since we don’t do commercial loans, it will be totally useless. But at least it will be a quick way of getting within striking distance of the yearly requirement. A couple more days of workshops where you are told of some lenders’ products (it’s much better to get it live from an instructor, even if you can read) with a nice afternoon’s golf and Bob’s your uncle. Next stop university degrees for all mortgage brokers. And why not?
Hrmmph! You call that an upgrade qualification? THIS is an upgrade qualification! http://hia.com.au/Training%20and%20Events/Details.aspx?Code=VTMBLD0903
Well actually I can carry on happily like I am, but reading between the lines the powers that be are going to want everyone to do it at some stage. The industry is too tired and the course too steep, so the Minister has chucked a subsidy at HIA and MBA no doubt to get a few hundred on board so he can turn to the rest and expect them to do likewise. So I figure now is better.
The BCA is now 2 Volumes thick with another State Appendices and from that it starts referencing a mountain of Aust Standards. Basically with national accreditation and licensing I’ll be able to go and build cyclonic housing in the tropics but will I ever? It’s really all just a big stick to beat you over the head with whenever something goes wrong. That’s the way things are nowadays and it all raises the bar and costs for new entrants and we’re a greying lot now.
My tip is with this and carbon taxing to come, get yourself into established RE during the current downturn because building and housing affordability will never be cheaper, assuming we aren’t headed for a re-run of the 1930s naturally (and that’s some disclaimer eh?)
Nick,
Agree wholeheartedly with your frustration/sarcasm. To me, this goes directly to the question of self regulation versus black letter/govt regulation. As someone who had an early public policy ‘success’ in significantly improving consumers’ rights in the life insurance industry by winding back some ‘practices’ (e.g. an agent had the legal ability to retain the first 4 year’s premiums from customers as well as borrow against the future income stream) only to discover, to my subsequent horror, the creation of a financial advisory industry primarily populated by former life insurance salespersons.
I have often wrestled with the question as to when is formal oversight needed and when is self regulation OK. I used to think it should be a function of how difficult/rigorous it was to achieve a required qualification, but the proceedings of the law society has long since changed that view. Now I am more inclined to the view that black letter law should (somehow) make the ‘industry body’ take ultimate responsibility. That is, if you want to create an industry with barriers to entry, then all your members through subscriptions or levies should pay compensation for rip offs by rogue members.
Perhaps you could suggest this is the best way forward for the Mortgage Institute of Australia?
PS I suspect you would have given a number of presentations over the years that have resulted in certain professions claiming professional development points (which raises the issue of whether you could be destroying a future income stream!)
“All professions are a conspiracy against the laity” – George Bernard shaw
They’ll want all mortgage brokers to have accounting degree’s next. However the government still won’t legislate to require Financial Counsellors to have similar qualifications and professional development standards
Last year I had to get a Home builder ‘qualification’.
Paid out 80 dollars to a private provider of certification and they emailed the .Pdf ‘text book’ (full of commonsense and sensible advice). I then did the exam. Anybody who is not a fence post, could pass the test – To give the flavor, one Question was : Is BASIX – a) a “board game about the environment” OR b) a set of building standards for environmental sustainability ? I passed.
We then drove 90Ks to nearest city, paid out 120 dollars to Fair Trading and after 40 mins I got my certification.
I am not against make work schemes for the theoretically qualified, but god they do chew up the time.
It seems that improving “qualifications” is a limp proxy for improving the morality of people in the business. As if a well-credentialed crook will never press dodgy investments that he was paid to spruik when he was less “educated”. Australian business morality has taken a deeper dive than I can ever remember.
You’re not the only one griping-
http://www.news.com.au/business/ralph-norris-blasts-banking-regulation-changes/story-e6frfm1i-1226088622778
MikeM
‘Qualifications’ create jobs for people who are ‘qualified’ to supplyqualifications.
If memory serves, a year or so ago there was a stated Gov aim to make virtually all Australian adults hold tertiary qualifications by 2025. I would expect there will be much much more of this sort of stuff coming our way.