Report shows a drop in complaints against mortgage brokers

The 2015 Annual Report from the Credit & Investment Ombudsman (CIO) contains good news for mortgage brokers, as it has been revealed the number of complaints lodged against brokers has fallen over the past 12 months.

The drop in complaints runs against the grain of the report as a whole, which showed total complaints against financial service providers increased to 4,848 in FY2015, a rise of 7.4 per cent. Of that number, however, only 294 were complaints against brokers and aggregators specifically, a drop of 0.8 per cent from 311 in FY2014.

CIO Ombudsman Raj Venga commented that the drop in complaints was pleasing, due to mortgage and finance brokers making up 84 per cent of CIO’s membership base. Also encouraging for the broker industry was the finding that most of the complaints leveled at brokers were related to the service provided by individuals, rather than the products themselves.

“Consumers rely on the broker’s expertise to arrange a suitable loan for them and make a complaint when they consider that the loan is not in fact suitable,” Venga said.

One of the key focus points for the CIO over the past year has been the ongoing reduction of complaint resolution timelines, and Mr Venga also announced in the Annual Report that they have continued to see improvement in that regard over the past year.

“As of 30 June 2015, only two complaints were older than 12 months and no financial hardship complaint was older than four months,” he said. The number of financial hardship complaints also decreased over 2015, to a new low of 24 per cent.

Positive signs such as these point to continuing growth for the mortgage broker industry, and will likely increase customer confidence around approaching a broker to discuss home loan options.