Intermediaries are the best sales force lenders could have
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With its latest Mortgage Market Review paper the FSA seems to be suggesting that consumers should deal with call centres or find some way to take time off work to go into a branch and see a 19-year-old adviser who has just qualified.
Banks do not pay these staff enough or offer sufficient incentives for them to stay in their roles for long so there will be no continuity of service and they can never truly know their clients.
I have survived this turbulent time by having 10 years’ worth of clients who have received excellent advice and service, and who continue to refer all their friends, family and work colleagues to me. This surely proves that using an adviser is a good thing.
Interestingly, I met a chap last week who couldn’t understand why his 43-year term mortgage wasn’t coming down faster.
The deal had been sold to him direct by Nationwide over the telephone. When asked how long a mortgage term he would like he responded, “I don’t know - the longest there is I guess”. How is this advice?
He’s now reduced his term to 23 years, which is more than comfortably within his affordability and will, he hopes, make up for the extra interest he’s been paying for the past two years.
I can’t believe lenders feel they will be better off if they lose the expertise provided by the intermediary sector.
We are ultimately lenders’ strongest sales force. Badly trained call centre staff and a single person in a branch are not going to generate the same level of business we can put their way.
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