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BAMC urges industry to help brokers pass CeMap exams

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  • 21/05/2002
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Should lenders and packagers be paying brokers to sit examinations?

The packager Best Advice Mortgage Centre (BAMC) has called for lenders and packagers to pay for intermediaries to take the necessary exams in order to continue to write business next year.

The company claims mortgage lenders, packagers and mortgage clubs are not doing enough to help intermediaries with the reforms sweeping the industry, and urges the industry to do more to assist brokers and IFAs to gain compulsory qualifications before the deadline at the year end. Failure to do so could result in large numbers of intermediaries being forced out of their jobs next year, with disastrous consequences for some.

Richard Hall, managing director of BAMC, said: ‘Some companies, particularly those that rely on self-employed brokers, could see their sales teams destroyed at a stroke. There are many lenders, packagers and mortgage clubs that fall into this category and I think it is time they acted speedily.’

The Mortgage Code Compliance Board’s March figures show that less than 40% of intermediaries have passed CeMAP or MAQ exams.

Hall added: ‘What brokers need is encouragement and support, not a host of seminars telling them their world will fall apart if they do not get CeMAP and MAQ. What I am talking about is lenders and packagers paying for their intermediaries to take these exams and providing ongoing support.’

Steve Holt, compliance director at network Homeloan Partnership, does not think paying for intermediaries’ exams is viable. He said: ‘There are 40,000 intermediaries, who is going to pay? I would look more to the lenders offering training courses, rather than paying for the exams.’

He does, however, agree that there is a serious problem: ‘The situation is getting dangerous, we are about to do another seminar and I guarantee that hardly any of our members will have done anything since the last seminar two months ago.

‘Fifteen years ago, the financial services industry went through the same process and the attitude was a lot more progressive. At the end of the day this is someone’s career. As far as this industry is concerned, intermediaries need to wake up to what is happening.’


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