Licensed broker or credit representative?

Mortgage aggregators and brokers are still tossing up whether it makes sense for brokers to apply for licences under the new National Consumer Credit Protection regime or whether they should operate as credit representatives of aggregators.

Yesterday two groups gave different responses to the question.

Firstfolio, which has 1000 loan writers on its books (and 500 of them active), is expecting its brokers to operate as credit representatives.

Firstfolio chief executive Mark Forsyth said he still had legal advisers on the case looking at the best outcome, but his feeling is that most brokers will decide that holding a licence is too much of an administrative burden and will opt for credit representative status.

Forsyth said: "We have not made a call but it is more likely that there will be more credit representatives than licensees in our group."

Vow executive Tony Newcombe said he expected that most of the 900 loan writers in the group would be licensed "because they want their independence".

Vow had a launch party in Sydney last night. The group, which is backed by 20 per cent equity holder Macquarie Group, is the product of the merger of The Mortgage Professionals, National Brokers Group and The Brokerage.