The Senior Australians Equity Release Association of Lenders (SEQUAL) has joined with the FPA to offer courses that will enable financial planners to become reverse mortgage consultants.
"I can confirm that the FPA and SEQUAL are collaborating on the development of a program that is appropriate to planners," SEQUAL head of education Kevin Conlon said.
The course will be launched in the third quarter of 2008 and will most likely be offered as a half-day workshop followed by an online assessment.
Conlon estimated the course would provide participants with five continuing professional development points from the FPA.
"I think that just out of intellectual curiosity, there will be thousands of planners doing the course," Conlon said.
The attraction of reverse mortgages was a by-product of baby boomers entering retirement underfunded and without the ability to sustain their lifestyles, he said.
"I don't want to play into the argument that reverse mortgages are scary, that they're complicated, that these consumers are vulnerable," he said.
He said the reverse mortgage market, currently unregulated, would benefit from regulation and a code of practice.
"What you need to do is educate; educate practitioners so that they understand what the process is, and educate consumers so that they are discerning about the people that they are dealing with," he said.
The resistance toward reverse mortgages does not lie with the consumer, as suggested by ASIC with its recent comment that baby boomers are walking around cashed up and squandering their money.
"Unlike what the press was saying this time last year, that there is going to be a turf war over reverse mortgages, that the brokers shouldn't have the product, that these products should have advice therefore it should be a regulated financial instrument, that turf war never eventuated and was never likely to eventuate," Conlon said.
Financial services group Bluestone recently made it compulsory for mortgage brokers to get accredited by SEQUAL before they could recommend the specialist lender's reverse mortgage product, Equitytap.
