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Brokerage insight
Partnerships pave the way for success
Leveraging key connections with financial planners, accountants and property advisers has supercharged Lydian Finance’s rapid growth and its support for brokers, says CEO Chris Booth
SYDNEY BROKERAGE Lydian Finance has just celebrated its second anniversary, but it’s a business that’s been many years in the making.
Founder and CEO Chris Booth says he met Andrew Rocks, now co-owner and chairman of the brokerage, 15 years ago tionships by freeing up their operations time.” Booth says Lydian Finance provides a strong service proposition, client experience, culture, community and brand for its brokers to leverage from and build great businesses within Lydian. The brokerage is growing quickly as it capitalises on brokers’ skill and
when he joined a one-stop financial planning company as a partner.
Booth and Rocks provided lending and mortgage advice to clients of the company’s financial planning team. In 2017, the business merged into a national financial planning dealer group, and the pair offered their lending services to a self-employed network of over 200 financial planners.
“In 2020, I was 49, having a midlife moment where I felt the time was right to capitalise on my experience and many years working in the mortgage broking industry and build a scalable business,” Booth says. “With my vision and values at the core, I took the leap.”
Booth’s aim in starting up Lydian Finance was to quickly build a team of experienced mortgage brokers in a fun, flexible “work from anywhere” environment.
“We empower brokers to focus on ongoing advice, client relationships and partner relaexpertise to provide lending services in partnership with financial planning, accounting and property advisory businesses.
“Our Lydian engine room is powered by our growing, very experienced and dedicated team of mortgage broking assistants in Cebu, Philippines, via Virtual Business Partners [VBP] led by my business mentor, Dave Carney,” says Booth.
He says when establishing Lydian Finance, Carney advised him to just ask for help. “So I have called in favours from friends, family, clients, business mentors to get here.”
Booth says he “wears many hats”: recruiting brokers and partners; training the operations team; marketing; and speaking to clients, but he always seeks good counsel from Rocks and others. “Luckily I can entrust the client advice and lending to our team of mortgage brokers while I focus on growing the business, the vision and values of Lydian and making the business better for us all.”
Booth says his learning, like the company’s growth, has been exponential. “It’s an extremely exciting time to be in the lending and advice
RECOGNITION FOR COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Lydian Finance broker Jamie Gant has family in Lombok, Indonesia, and lives there for part of the year, says brokerage CEO Chris Booth. “They were hit with a devastating earthquake in 2018. Schools and families were left without clean water in many of the villages around Lombok,” says Booth.
In June 2021, Lydian started contributing $50 per loan settlement towards paying for a water filtration system to support the villages; it plugs into the local school so children can get clean water, and outside school hours families can fill up with water for their homes.
The brokerage has raised $25,000 to buy five water filtration systems for schools, and Pepper Money’s Broker Shout Out campaign recognised these efforts with a $10,000 donation. “It’s really nice to set up a charity. The bigger we get the more people we can help,” Booth says.
Lydian is also a finalist in the 2022 Specialist Finance Group Community Awards.
industry. Two years in, we have a great platform in place. I’m lucky to have good people in the Lydian team and great partnerships in place with some brilliant businesses.
“We have a strong purpose, vision and plan – my job is to keep focused on this plan.”
Lydian Finance operates as a professional advice partner, offering lending and debt advice for clients of financial planning, accounting and property advisory businesses.
“We implement a ‘plug-in’ debt and lending business for advice businesses that choose not to have an in-house lending solution,” says Booth. These include more than 250 financial planning businesses sourced from the VBP network, many of which do not have an in-house mortgage broking service.
Rocks is also the chairman of XY Adviser, a financial planning community group with 6,000 members. “[XY Adviser] CEO Clayton Daniel and community builder Emily Blanch have been very supportive of Lydian. We [Lydian, XY Adviser and VBP] are all cohabiting in our new offices at 75 Pitt St, Sydney, so this will be a great space to collaborate and support each other,” he says.
Lydian brokers get the benefit of aligning with Lydian partners, such as digital finance platform My Money Sorted and financial advisers Coastal Advice Group.
In July, Lydian started a new partnership with tax accountancy firm H&R Block.
“We provide H&R Block clients with a personal ‘concierge’ conversation to discuss their financial needs outside of tax and accounting,” Booth says.
Lydian works with its national partnerships businesses to facilitate and introduce H&R Block clients to the right advice professionals. “We’re providing guidance and assistance to over 200 H&R Block clients monthly.”
The biggest trend affecting Lydian is the digitisation of its loan processes, Booth says. As digitisation continues and open banking services offer alternative documentation collection, Lydian will help clients and brokers adopt these new best practices to enhance the pre-lodgement process.
As well as recruiting mortgage brokers over the last 12 months, Lydian has been focusing on lender turnaround times and processes, and on capturing these efficiencies within its best interest duty recommendations to clients and partners. Lydian also recently introduced a digital marketing assistant team (from VBP) to assist brokers with their B2C marketing strategies, including EDMs and social media content.
“Lydian is on the journey to be one of the best mortgage brokerage businesses in Australia – a home for mortgage brokers to be successful and be part of a great community and club,” Booth says.
LYDIAN FINANCE AT A GLANCE
Co-owners: Chris Booth, CEO; Andrew Rocks, chairman
Location: 5/75 Pitt St, Sydney CBD
Year founded: 1 September 2020
Services offered: • Mortgage broking services: home loans, investor home loans, commercial loans, SMSF loans, equipment finance • Under partnership: financial advice, property advice, wills and estate planning
Number of employees: 30
