Campbell joined Finsure in July and says the company has been working to get its customer relationship management (CRM) software adapted to suit NZ conditions and practices.
The CRM is “a critical part” of the aggregator's offering and so it was important to take the time to get it right, she says.
“We own it and it was developed in-house in Sydney. It's being updated constantly with new features” as well as the updates from lenders on interest rates and other such information.
“It took quite a lot of work to make it appropriate for the NZ advice process,” Campbell says.
She says she's probably tried every CRM offering in the NZ market over the years.
“I can, hands-on-heart, say it's the best one I've seen.” Not only is it easy to use - “just follow your nose” - but it covers all local compliance requirements, provides mortgage-specific training modules and can handle just about every configuration of brokerage businesses.
So, now she's busy talking to local advisers about what Finsure has to offer them.
In Australia, Finsure is growing “at a phenomenal rate” with it now having passed 3,000 members, up from about 2,800 when Campbell joined, and the trajectory for 2024 is looking very positive, she says.
The Mortgage Mag's survey of brokers suggest a very high retention rate for the aggregators in the NZ market through 2023 with only 8.3% saying they had changed groups during the year, down from 10.5% the previous year and more than 15% in 2021.
Campbell says she thinks that's more reflective of the lack of options in our market and that she hopes to bring more competition to the local market.
“The environment is definitely changing. I think next year we're going to see an awful lot of movement between groups,” she says.
“The thing about competition is it brings about better results for the client.”
Campbell observes that a lot of advisers “got sold a sausage” when the Financial Advice Provider (FAP) regime came into force and thought they should become FAPs themselves.
“But really it doesn't add a lot of value to your business” and the costs of maintaining that status can be onerous, she says.
NZ is likely to follow the Australian pattern which has seen many advisers opting to operate from their aggregator's FAP, rather than trying to maintain their own.
But Finsure is happy to support both FAPs and brokers wishing to come under Finsure's FAP licence, she says.
