The past year (2023) has been boringly interesting for our industry in that there was not a lot of ’new’ impacting regulatory matters delivered to the table that caused any angst, albeit the FBAA is very unhappy as to where AFCA is wanting to head with their greater oversight on small businesses and we have pushed back quite firmly on this. We also have been told it is unlikely to progress too far but we wont rest on our laurels on that and will keep the pressure on all the right places.
We have also kept the pressure on the clawback conversation and net of offset commissions. We now hope we will see stakeholder engagement and traction on clawbacks in the first half of 2024, and the net of offset commission payments did not get the recognition it should have with the Payment Times Reporting Act review but there si a progression on this come July 2024 whereby we will be making further representations to government to get this sorted.
Otherwise, we were fortunate to have the year we had, ASIC stopped auditing brokers files for possible BID breaches, AFCA complaints continue to be very very low and don't rate on their charts as its so small, we just need to stay focused and don't become complacent and continue to do what is in our clients best interests.
So what’s install for 2024, pretty much the same as last year for now. We’ve just had some research conducted into mainstream borrower land, which shows that although we think that having a 70% market share of loans originated through the broker channel is great, which it is, but it is not the truth of the whole story. We have found that only 47% of first time borrowers are using brokers - wow that’s low in comparison to what we think - so when brokers are looking at "where are my opportunities for growth", here it is, focus on "first time" borrowers …. they need your help!
Otherwise, in 2024 the most important thing to do is keep doing what you are doing, do not become complacent in your duties, adhere to BID and to meet your compliance needs ‘document document document’ !
Stay safe and hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!
