A roundtable of mortgage lending experts brought together by accounting firm Deloitte has recognised financial planning is not a cross-selling opportunity mortgage brokers would be able to successfully adopt.
Instead the majority of them agreed the distribution of life and general insurance products would be a more appropriate activity for mortgage brokers to pursue if they felt the need to expand the services they offered.
"No one said financial planning. I think it was considered a bridge too far. To come from being a broker and extend to a fully fledged planner was too difficult," Deloitte banking partner James Hickey said.
He was quick to point out this did not mean the mortgage lending sector wanted to ignore financial planning all together.
"Some commented that an alliance between a broker group and a planner group may be more sensible where you've got specialists in each of the areas and they try to cross refer," Hickey said.
"But it's been shown that this is hard to get working as well," he said.
However, when asked what might likely occur to mortgage brokers in the coming year 27 per cent of round table participants said they expected further acquisition of these groups by wealth management organisations lending weight to the thought strategic alliances might be the way of the future.
"That's been the logic of why wealth management may look at getting into broking. If you're good at managing a distribution force of financial planners you may also be able to extend that skill set to a distribution force of brokers," Hickey explained.
"Having said that wealth managers who deal on the asset side of the balance sheet to the consumer is certainly not familiar with dealing with the debt side of the balance sheet and that's the hard thing," he said.
