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Vivienne Kelly
Online channels and lead generation tools for lenders pose little threat to brokers, a leading non-bank lender has claimed.
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At the end of 2012, Dealmax, a website offering to connect borrowers with various lenders, caused controversy with its billboard advertising campaign which encourages borrowers to ‘say goodbye to brokers’.
Homeloans’ general manager for sales, Greg Mitchell, however, has said there is room in the marketplace for both channels.
“I don’t think online channels are taking market share from the brokers,” he told The Adviser. “I just think there’s a certain type of consumer who likes doing things differently and doing things via the computer. They like playing around with numbers and application forms.”
Mr Mitchell’s comments echo those of DealMax’s CEO Pedro Goncalves who said the online platform was not aiming to take market share away from the third party distribution channel. Mr Goncalves said DealMax was instead aiming to capture people as they did their research online.
Yet the company’s cheeky advertising campaign caused many brokers to question his claims.
Mr Mitchell, however, says brokers should not feel threatened.
“There’s definitely space for both in the marketplace, and quite comfortably. I don’t think you’ll ever stop a consumer wanting to speak to a broker face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball and go through a variety of options.
“But you will get an element of people out there that want to sit down and surf the net and find out what is out there on offer.
“People will always use brokers because they give you the ability to deal with someone that you trust. There’s a lot involved in doing loans, but there are people out there who can do it for you.”
In a recent straw poll conducted by The Adviser, 35.1 per cent of brokers said they thought online channels would erode broker market share, while 58.7 per cent were confident that the online channel did not pose a threat.
