60 seconds with.....Linda Will
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Do building society chief executives and directors get paid too much?
It’s as difficult to run a building society as it is to run any other type of bank or financial institution. These organisations need staff that are competent to take them forward and you have to pay the going rate to get that sort of experience and quality.
There’s a difference between not having to answer to third party shareholders and having to optimise profits to ensure members’ interests are protected.
What are your views on dual pricing and product rationing?
It’s horses for courses. If you are selling direct to customers you are not paying proc frees and generally earning income from third party product sales such as general insurance. On the other hand when working through brokers, if you play the game right you accept that the customers are theirs so there are no cross-selling opportunities. We have distinct channels for both routes to market and of course the cost of distribution is different in each.
Is recent mortgage fraud as big an issue as chelsea is making out?
That’s the $64,000 question. Of course, the definition of fraud is that it only comes to light after the event. So has there been some mortgage fraud perpetrated recently? Undoubtedly. Is there more mortgage fraud yet to be discovered? Undoubtedly. But are we talking about huge sums of money or vast numbers of scams? I don’t think so. I think we’ll find it is mainly confined to certain high risk areas of lenders’ books.
What are the biggest challenges facing mortgage brokers today?
The dearth of products and strict criteria. Broker businesses have shrunk, along with their associated earning power and ability to compete. The other challenge is learning to operate in different areas such as GI. Unfortunately, during the boom years a lot of brokers failed to adopt a holistic approach to helping clients.
You are a successful woman in a male-dominated sector. What advice would you give other women?
For women to succeed in the financial services world they have to work twice as hard as men. Fortunately, that’s not hard.
But seriously, I’ve always found that the organisations I have worked for have promoted and rewarded individuals on the basis of merit.
