Veteran mortgage adviser Geoff Bawden sells his dealer group

Longtime adviser Geoff Bawden has sold his dealer group, Q Group, to The Adviser Platform (TAP).

This move accelerates TAP’s plans to work with mortgage advisers and has the potential to be the start of renewed competition amongst existing groups.

Adding to this will be the arrival of a well-established Australian group into the New Zealand market later this year.

TAP managing director Ryan Edwards says he has aggressive plans to expand and a “very clear value proposition.”

Under the TAP model advisers are encouraged and given the tools to run their own Financial Adviser Provider (FAP). This allows advisers to have responsibility for their own business and they can avoid “contagion” risk if they are part of another FAP which runs into trouble with one of its members.

Edwards says the Financial Markets

Authority has already started monitoring visits and these will show the value proposition offered by some groups just doesn’t stack up.

Bawden set up Q Group in 2015 after leaving another group Prosper. He is a veteran of the industry and headed the now defunct NZ Mortgage Brokers Association (NZMBA) for many years.

TAP and Q had been working together for some time, as previously reported by TMMOnline, and share similar values. Q has around 30 advisers.

"TAP and Q Group have had a strong partnership to date and with shared values and drive to make a difference for advisers, the acquisition aims to leverage the credibility of both businesses to create greater value for adviser members," Edwards says.

“For the past eight years, we’ve developed a market-leading proposition in the mortgage aggregation space," Bawden says.