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Intermediaries must be ‘indispensable’ or risk extinction – Brodnicki

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  • 23/06/2016
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Intermediaries must be ‘indispensable’ or risk extinction – Brodnicki
Brokers are at risk being knocked off distribution perches by lenders' superior technology budgets and client access, CEO of Mortgage Advice Bureau, Peter Brodnicki, has warned.

Speaking to an audience of almost 1,000 brokers at MAB’s annual conference this morning in Leicester, Brodnicki said: “The fact is intermediaries have to work harder, a lot harder, to earn the opportunity and the status of trusted relationship, so that they retain their customers, and are in pole position for future sales – and I don’t mean just mortgages.

“Making a call out of the blue in two, three, or five years’ time to remortgage an existing customer is just not good enough, and quite often that call doesn’t even happen.”

He said that intermediaries have been ‘lucky’ so far but added that brokers must make themselves indispensable to our customers or risk being “left behind just like Blockbuster were and so many others too”.

Brodnicki explained that large technology budgets held by lenders and the creeping influence of technology on customer experience meant lenders will play their advantage with customers.

“In terms of speed and ease, product switching in a post-MMR environment favours the lenders. Technology is improving daily making that increasingly more simple and appealing, despite the compelling logic of using an intermediary to ensure that you never pay more than you need to for your mortgage,” he added.

The Mortgage Market Review landed brokers with majority market share, due to the obligation for all lenders to offer advised sales, but to hold on to that share advisers need to give consumers what they want, Brodnicki said.

The biggest threat will emerge from new lenders with no legacy issues and technology in their DNA, building ‘businesses of the future’, he added.

Brodnicki also made a series of predictions, including that many traditional network models will struggle to survive as the mortgage landscape transforms.

He also warned there would be fewer intermediary firms and said adviser numbers would fall despite the number of new lenders and increased lending volumes in the market.

However, he added that technology-driven firms would ensure an even more compelling proposition for consumers, with lenders likely to become more selective over their intermediary partners.

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