You are here: Home - News -

FSE adviser majority votes against relaxing access to equity release qualification

by: Mortgage Solutions
  • 14/09/2016
  • 0
FSE adviser majority votes against relaxing access to equity release qualification
Almost two-thirds of attendees in an equity release-focused seminar at this year’s Financial Service Expo (FSE) London voted against the regulator's proposals to relax access to equity release qualifications for diploma-qualified advisers.

The full question posed at the beginning of the session by Dean Mirfin, technical director at Key Retirement (pictured), was:

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today announced a consultation on whether to create a new qualification to allow diploma-qualified advisers easier access to an equity release qualification. Do you think allowing easier access to any product area is a good idea?

In response to this 60% of the audience voted no and the remaining 40% yes. Mirfin suggested this was “an interesting conclusion and something that could perhaps be fed into the consultation”. He also pointed out that this presented a wider question not only about equity release but also about other areas of the market, in terms of whether, as an industry, any areas of advice should be made easier to access.

In terms of key future trends, Mirfin advised that equity release rates were likely to continue falling and that products would start to look more mainstream. He also outlined that, due to FCA rule changes, more serviceable lending options would emerge to further protect clients against default.

In terms of technological advances Mirfin pointed out that a number of lenders are rapidly moving forward with their online capabilities.

He said: “If you look at some of the lenders’ point of sale technology you would actually be staggered. There are straight-through applications and other innovations which you, as advisers, would be very much used to in the mainstream mortgage world and in some cases providers are taking things even further. Some really interesting things are happening right now and there are even more in development.”

He added: “However, what still isn’t right is the methodology for research. We, Key Retirement, have been going for 18 years and still have to have our own research tool because there is nothing out there which does the job well enough. That’s the major challenge facing the industry from a technology viewpoint.”

There are 1 Comment(s)

You may also be interested in