A Perth-based financial services provider has been banned from the industry for eight years by the corporate watchdog due to his involvement with collapsed fuel additive firm Firepower.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has banned Quentin Ward, of Nedlands, from providing financial services until 2017, ASIC said in a statement on Wednesday.

The ban follows ongoing civil proceedings brought by ASIC against Mr Ward and a company that he was the sole director of, Axis International Management Pty Ltd.
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The Seven Network has been ordered to pay $240,000 in defamation damages to a mortgage broker falsely portrayed as having fleeced $1 million from a dementia patient.

In awarding the damages to Peter Mahommed on Thursday, Justice David Kirby said the elderly woman had not suffered from dementia and was a “practised fraudster”.

Mr Mahommed, 53, sued Channel Seven in the NSW Supreme Court over a June 2004 Today Tonight program and two earlier promotional broadcasts screened throughout most of Australia.

He had worked in the Newcastle area but since the show could not continue in the job. He moved house, grew a beard and wore a baseball cap so people would not recognise him.
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ANZ Banking Group Ltd is to shed as many as 248 full-time equivalent positions in a major restructure of its mortgage lending businesses in each state and the Northern Territory.

The positions affected are in addition to the 500 job cuts announced by the bank earlier this year in other parts of the group.

The latest round of job cuts involve mainly back-room operations in ANZ mortgage facilitation centres in Sydney, Brisbane, South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory and Tasmania.

The back-room operations will be centralised to Melbourne.
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Wealth Today has become the name brokers and financial professionals are talking about after successfully launching in Victoria late last month. With head offices in Perth and a senior director based in Queensland, Wealth Today is a part of the Today Group of Companies, recently named in the BRW Fast Starters list of 2009 and previously in 2008.

Last month saw the company launch its first Academy for brokers in Melbourne. The unique, custom designed Academy qualifies brokers to give financial advice so that they can help their valuable clients attain a mortgage and then swiftly work with them on strategies to pay it off sooner.

With risk management and insurance included in their service offering, the Wealth Today Adviser is a one-stop-shop for the significant mums and dads market looking to get a grip on their financial practises in these challenging economic times.
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Mortgage Choice is pleased to see the Reserve Bank of Australia maintain the official cash rate at 3% for a third month in a row, giving borrowers more time to prepare their pockets for eventual rate rises.

A number of lenders have already begun raising mortgage interest rates in recent weeks, sparking concern from borrowers that the much lower repayment levels experienced in the past several months may be short lived.

Mortgage Choice senior corporate affairs manager, Kristy Sheppard said that since increasing fixed rates began to receive attention last month there has been a marked rise in the number of proactive Australians enquiring about their loan options.

“People are realising that the time of historically low interest rates is probably coming to a close. Whether or not this is the case, we are pleased to see borrowers and potential property buyers using the relative respite in rate movements to thoroughly research their loan options,” she said.
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Smartline has formally merged with Western Australian broking group Mortgage Force, making the new group one of Australia’s largest franchised broking companies.

The company now has more than 200 franchise owners throughout Australia, has assisted over 100,000 clients and has a loan portfolio exceeding $10 billion.

Smartline Managing Director, Chris Acret, said while the merger had required considerable management time and effort, the process had been relatively smooth, with more than 60 Mortgage Force brokers operating within the Smartline franchise system from 1 July.

The Mortgage Force brand has been retained in WA, with the Smartline brand adopted across the rest of the country.
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Today’s guest post comes from Lex Graber from Direct Investor and talks about the simplification of the banking system.

Like the Henry report and other government initiatives many people in the Finance Industry believe it’s time to revisit the entire Banking and Loan Origination System given the large commentary on this subject lately. Part of the reason for the review has been the GFC and the poor credit management it has alerted us too. We thought it was time to take a look at why it has become so complex and how we can move to rebuild and reform the industry by examining some of these issues.

Most people are familiar with the KISS principle, that is, we should seek to simplify where possible. If we take a Bank/Lender product as an example, there was a time not so very long ago when Bank service was better and people formed relationships with their Banker. This meant Bank customers were reluctant to move and seek a competitors offerings.

With the arrival of the Internet and several economic downturns later Bank customers became more price conscious and shopped around. Some Banks gained ground as their products were clearly cheaper while others lost ground. Service was discounted by their customers in order to continue to put food on the table whilst Banks looked to trim their service and increase their margins.
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A mortgage broker allegedly defrauded up to $5 million and threatened clients who planned to inform police, a Sydney court has been told. Samer Hraiki appeared in Central Local Court on Tuesday charged with deceptive conduct as well as traffic-related matters.

Hraiki’s lawyer William Barber said his client, a finance broker of many years, encountered financial difficulties while developing a property in Kings Cross, which would have realised tens of millions of dollars in profit.

Mr Barber told the court Hraiki did what he could to get himself out of debt.
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The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has maintained official interest rates at a 49-year low amid signs that the global economy is stabilising and that domestic inflation will continue to abate.But the central bank left open the door to further rate cuts, if they are needed.

“The board’s current view is that the outlook for inflation allows some scope for further easing of monetary policy, if needed,” governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement accompanying the decision.

“In assessing how it might use that scope, the board will continue to monitor how economic and financial conditions unfold and how they impinge on prospects for a sustainable recovery in economic activity.”

The RBA decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at three per cent after its board meeting on Tuesday, as had been widely expected.
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By Jill Fraser for Lending Central 

Defying the dire predictions of many commentators and the domination of the Big Four banks, regional banks, credit unions and building societies have continued to deliver solid financial results (although significantly down on prior periods) and strengthened balance sheets in the 2009 financial year to 31 March.

KPMG has analysed the ‘second tier’ of the Australian banking sector and found that the sector continues to be a relevant and important provider of financial services.

“These sectors have continued to be profitable. However their ability to compete with the major banks is being sorely tested in these challenging markets” said Martin McGrath, partner at KPMG.

Profitability was significantly lower compared to the previous half-year due primarily to an increase in bad debts expense in business lending for the regional banks and, for credit unions and building societies, a decline in net interest and non-interest income.
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Mortgage sales to first home buyers have fallen by 30.6% since their peak in March according to AFG, Australia’s largest mortgage broker. AFG Mortgage Index shows that 19.5% of all mortgages sold in June were to first home buyers - compared to 28.1% just three months earlier.

AFG was the first organisation to note a significant decline in first home buyer activity in its figures for May. June figures shows that this trend has been sharply magnified as the first home buyer sector returns to levels closer to the long term norm (between 10% and 15%).

Investor confidence continued to grow in June with the proportion of loans to investors rising to 29.0%, up from a low of 24.5% in March. AFG’s long term norm for this sector is in the range of 30% ¬35% of all mortgages sold.
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By Jill Fraser for Lending central

Continuing our series on aggregators Lending Central spoke to Mortgage Wisdom CEO David Smith who maintains that as long as brokers and lenders continue to see issues as black and white the stalemate will persist.

LC: Are your brokers angry about the current situation with the big four banks?

DS: Yes, but I’d say they are equally frustrated. They’re actually extremely frustrated at present.

They’re trying to do everything that’s asked of them but the rules are constantly changing and they’re getting very concerned about where it’s all heading.

LC: What do you do in response to the frustration? Where do you go with it?

DS: Our brokers try to solve their issues by conventional means and when all else fails they call on Head Office for assistance. Head Office then escalates the issue accordingly.

Where the broker might be speaking with the BDM Head Office would be speaking with the National Manager, Lending Manager or even the General Manager.
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Most Australians believe the boosted First Home Owners Grant contributed to inflated property prices, a national survey has found.

An online poll conducted by leading mortgage broker Loan Market Group found 66 per cent of respondents thought the expanded grant scheme had pushed prices up in some markets.

But 35 per cent of those who said the grant had inflated prices believed it had only impacted on the lower end of the property market and 31 per cent said it had not stopped them from buying real estate.
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photo credit: bb_mattToday’s guest post comes from an anonymous senior industry executive (so anonymous, not even we know the true identity!).  Due to the controversial views expressed in this guest post, we will be heavily moderating comments, so please do remember our comment rules!  Enjoy.

Brokers are threatened by big bank dominance, however should they band together they’ll be in a stronger position to secure the longevity of the industry, writes a senior industry commentator.

With the market in such a state of flux it’s tough to call what next month will bring, let alone six to twelve months in to the future. Nevertheless I think you can draw some pretty firm conclusions on the future shape of our industry based on well founded assumptions about past behaviors.

Let me put my comments into context.  I have worked for major banks, non-bank lenders and mortgage managers over many years and I am still heavily involved in the mortgage and mortgage broking industry.

I’ve been on the asset and liability committees of major lenders where they debate mortgage pricing, margins and profitability.
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