From The Chair Tony Carter Nobody can say this year hasn’t been interesting. 2020 has thrown just about every known business and personal challenge at everyone. And yet, Australians are resilient and innovative. Hopefully you are in a good place mentally, diligently working in your business and helping clients through this time of pandemic. Personally, I am confident we will all relate back on this year as a growth year – growth as a person and as a better business. As the saying goes: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. At meetings with FBAA State Presidents the feedback is that broker written business is significantly up albeit everything must line up to get through possibly the toughest credit assessments ever. The biggest and most common complaint is the double standards of SLA offered by banks. What takes 14 days in a branch can take up to 90 days in broker channel. How can this be fair and even? Fortunately, we have the advocacy program run by Peter White on top of this issue. However, this may be something worthwhile for ACCC to consider. When one State President was asked how he was going and what was his view of the future, he said, “a bit dented but still very positive”. I feel this is the general sentiment. We are all getting ready for best interests duty (BID) compliance. The FBAA online course Get BID Ready is an absolute must to ensure you are on top of this area of your business. A number of people were critical of our time to bring this to industry, however, the time spent consulting with David Carson and AAMC has produced the definitive education piece. I loved the answer when I asked how
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Broker Magazine
BID was being viewed by FBAA Brokers: “The Government has provided us with an absolute point of difference – Brokers must legally deliver on clients’ Best Interest. Banks don’t and never will.” It is my absolute pleasure to welcome Clive Kirkpatrick to the Board of FBAA. Clive brings over 30 years industry experience to our Board. He is passionate and eager to use his knowledge of lending, broker relations and industry management to benefit FBAA members. I am sure he will be an asset as we design the best way for FBAA to deliver quality and relevant services to our members and the greater industry. Over the coming three months we will be seeking your feedback. This is your opportunity to help design the FBAA Services Delivery Model to take us through and out the other side of COVID-19. One thing is sure, we will not be able to go back to the “old ways” of business interaction. The challenge is to deliver what you need, easily accessed and at no cost or minimal cost. This will be your opportunity to have input into the future of FBAA. As always, we could not serve our members without the tremendous support of our sponsors, the majority remaining through the pandemic period. A few have closed or reduced their offering and we look forward to the day when you find your pivot and return. Best wishes to all as you continue to build robust and sustained broker businesses.
Tony Carter Chairman
