A batch of data suggesting sluggish economic growth in the December quarter will not make much difference to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s interest rate decision on Tuesday.

Until the release of business indicators and balance of payments figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday, economists had been looking forward to news on Wednesday, in the bureau’s national accounts that the economy ended 2009 with a bang.

The median forecast by an AAP survey was growth of 0.9 per cent for seasonal and inflation adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) for the December quarter.

It would have been the fastest quarterly growth rate since the first half of 2008, before the wheels fell off the global economy.
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By Jill Fraser for Lending Central

The Australian Institute of Professional Brokers (AIPB) is relatively new on the scene but already it is demonstrating that it is willing to take on the big issues.

In an open letter dated 28 November and sent to the Chief Executive of the Australian Banking Association, David Bell, MFAA CEO Phil Naylor and the FBAA’s National President, Peter White the AIPB outlines broker grievances and seeks an open industry discussion.

The letter (see below) signed by AIPB co-founders Paul Flakus and Maria Rigoni is headed ‘Working Ethically with Finance Broker Professionals’.

Rigoni told Lending Central she believes that the only way to bring about positive change is by “bringing everything out into the open and if necessary having a tidal wave”.
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I’d like to say a huge thank you to our newest sponsors for this month. Without their support, we wouldn’t be in the position to bring you all the latest news and issues from around the industry.

In no particular order:

1. ValuePro
2. Wealth Today

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Hi Everyone,

Here at Lending Central we’ve always believed in allowing all of our readers the freedom of speech.  After all, that’s what the nature of the internet and indeed the basis of stimulating discussion is all about.

However, some of the last “controversial” topics and our lack of hard-line moderation has resulted in some questionable commentary by our readers.  It is with regret that we now have to announce the following regulations will be enforced and comments will begin to be moderated.

1. Profanities - All comments that have any profane comments will be moderated and edited to be toned down for our readers so as to limit the offensive nature of them.
2. Derogatory comments - All comments that have any derogatory comments towards interviewed people will be removed.  Examples of this are: “XYZ, you are full of s$%t”, “XYZ, you are a d#@khead” and these will be removed.  Interviews are extremely important to get answers to the questions that you ask and derogatory comments do nothing to make people want to be interviewed.
3. Derogatory comments towards other readers - This is self explanatory and any comments that are aimed at other readers will be completely removed. Examples of this are: “Reader Name, you are a loser”, “Reader Name, you don’t know what you are talking about.” and these will be removed
4. Comments that do not add anything to the conversation or the topic and really fall into points 2 and 3 above will be removed.  The point of commenting is to stimulate discussion and new ideas amongst the industry.  Everyone has a point of view and if you don’t agree with it, then come up with reasons why rather than just being derogatory.
5. As an important note, points 2 and 3 (and to some extent, point 4) belong on something like YouTube, NOT on a professional industry news source.  Over 30% of our readers are NOT from within the industry and for general public to see bickering and arguing instead of support and interesting ideas does nothing for the reputation of the commenter, or our industry as a whole.  Please keep this in mind when you do comment.
6. Commenters who do add value to the articles - and reading the comments, this is 95% of you, I thank you for your insights and valuable contributions to making Lending Central as popular as it is today.
7. Please do not quote people’s names in your comments from third-party companies without prior written authorisation from said person.  Where we receive notification from the people that they do not wish to be mentioned, your post will be removed.

Thank you in advance for ensuring that you do adhere to the requirements set forth above.  If you have any questions, please let us know and drop me an email using the contact form at the top of menu.

Regards,

Scott.

By Jill Fraser for Lending Central

The MFAA’s upcoming round table discussion between aggregators and lenders, which has been called to address industry issues, has been declared a charade.

Citing a lack of broker representation at the meeting Australian Institute of Professional Brokers (AIPB) co-founder, Maria Rigoni maintains that aggregators are not independent enough to represent brokers.

Referring to next Tuesday’s summit as a “get together that makes it look like we’re doing something for brokers” Rigoni says yet again brokers are being excluded from a significant industry decision-making process.

The crisis in service to brokers and the subsequent departure of growing numbers of brokers from the industry will be one of the main items on the agenda but Rigoni’s request to be included was declined.
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How to Write a Guest Post for Lending Central

These days, everyone has got something to say. However, not everywhere is there an outlet for you to get your thoughts out to the world.

While it’s our job to get you the news that you want to know, there are plenty of times where you have just got to get your thoughts out there. With that in mind, we’ve now introduced the ability for anyone to write a guest post for Lending Central! That’s right, you too can be a blogger!

So, you want to write an article…Where to begin I can hear you all thinking!
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Get the news delivered to your own website today!

We are very happy to announce that as from today, you can now enhance your own website with a direct news feed from Lending Central.  That’s right, this means that you can now enhance your own traffic and provide your clients with even more information than ever before by keeping up with the latest happenings as we report them on Lending Central.

Want to know how?
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By Scott Spencer

On the wake of the global financial crisis, 2009 will now also be known as the year that we had the worst bushfires in history. Bigger than Ash Wednesday, more horrific than Black Friday. The death toll from the fires that ravaged Victoria is climbing higher and higher. Entire towns gone. Friends and loved ones missing, people being left with nothing. You can’t help but to have seen it on the news over the weekend.

I used to camp around these areas as a child and it’s not nice to see places you had such fond memories of, gone.  We had a long look at ourselves over the weekend and realised just how lucky those of us not directly affected by the tragedy really are and decided that somehow, we have to help.
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2008 was certainly a tumultuous year, with the global economy going from bad to worse to…well better or worse again depending on who you speak to.

Now that 2009 is upon us, it’s always good to look back at the year that was and for those of you who may have missed a lot of the going on’s here at Lending Central, we count-down the top 5 articles of the year…as discussed by you!
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The Web.  These day’s it’s all about sharing the information that you have access to and making sure that you have access to it as soon as possible.

You may have noticed that we’ve implemented a new feature on our site that allows you to interact more than ever with all the best social media sites from across the web.
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Australia’s Premier Online Mortgage publication (with over 10,000 subscribers) is taking bookings for the upcoming year with opportunites including our newsletter update and home page positions.

Forget expensive advertising in print magazines where someone flicks past your ads without even a glance, never to be seen again until next month! Online ads are more cost effective than print and ensure that your advertisement gets seen every single day.
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The Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA) believes banks need to look beyond mortgages when passing on interest rate relief to struggling households and also focus on personal finance products such as credit cards.

FBAA National President, Peter White, said while the Association accepts that due to the credit crisis the major banks may not be in a position to pass on the full RBA 1.0 percent lowering of rates on mortgages there are many other personal finance products where excessive margins can be reduced to reflect the cut in official rates.
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The Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA) calls on the major banks to pass on any future cuts in official interest rates to help struggling borrowers.
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The Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA) supports the recent call by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) for greater regulation and disclosure around the performance bonuses of bank sales staff.
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