In the latest Mortgage Solutions poll, 34% of brokers disagreed, while 8% were undecided.
The response followed comments made by Richard Adams, founder of advice firm and network Stonebridge, who told Mortgage Solutions that until the Approved Persons test is mandatory for all networks, rogue advisers will continue to flit from network to network.
Andrew Frankish, managing director of Mortgage Talk, agreed with Adams. He said:
“We were really looking forward to that regulation coming in. It takes a lot of time and training to get advisers up to a high standard and regulation helps us eliminate some of the people that aren’t that good.”
Frankish added that the industry is trying to self regulate itself to ensure the right people are advising clients.
“Networks have a much greater awareness of rogue advisers and are tightening up their recruitment processes to ensure the right candidates get through.
“To a certain extent, we try to self regulate, but without the power from the regulator, it’s difficult to police it every day. We believe it would have been better for the industry if the Approved Persons requirement had come in.”
Robert Sinclair, director of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) added that having this authorisation process in place would help improve confidence in the market.
He said: “AMI has always been calling for the introduction of an authorisation and register system for brokers, and those people who work for banks also. We were very concerned when this was delayed and continue to be concerned because we just want to get it done.
“Having the Approved Persons requirement will also give consumers and lenders more confidence.”
He added: “Some networks are very good at removing people they might not want to have working with them. If there was this authorisation process it would make life simpler, but I think good networks are already in the space of taking references and understand what they need to do. I think it would help if all firms had greater clarity about what the FSA’s expectations are.”
According to Sinclair, the FSA said its working date for the Approved Persons requirement is late 2012/13.
