Almost half of financial advisers have no confidence at all in ASIC’s ability to monitor and prevent malpractice and financial product collapses, new research by CoreData on the Ripoll Inquiry has revealed.

Four out of five respondents (79.4%) feel advisers are being unfairly targeted, and more than half (57.5%) expect their professional indemnity insurance premiums to increase if the recommendations are adopted.

The research was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, November 25 and 26 by Sydney-based independent research group CoreData and included 236 advisers, predominantly financial planners and practice principals.

Almost two thirds of respondents (64.3%) disagree that payments from product manufacturers to financial advisers should be ceased and three quarters (76.8%) do not agree that conflicts of interest will be stamped out if the recommendations are adopted.
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The ACCC appears to have overestimated the strength of Australian mortgage competition when announcing last year that it would not oppose the Westpac / St George and Commonwealth Bank / Bankwest mergers.

The ACCC’s Public Competition Assessment in August 2008 calculated the merged Westpac / St George entity would at that point have had a mortgage market share of 21%. At the end of September 2009 the combined Westpac / St George entity has 23.4% mortgage market share, according to the forthcoming CoreData-brandmanagement Australian Mortgage Report.

In forming its view last year the ACCC noted a number of regional banks were expanding their presence in other states, citing Bankwest, Bank of Queensland, Suncorp and Bendigo Bank.
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The “Big Four” Banks now hold 73.8% of outstanding mortgages in Australia, up from 56.8% two years ago in August 2007, for Australians the effective dawn of the Global Financial Crisis.

Had the two mergers approved in 2008 - the Westpac takeover of St George and the Commonwealth Bank takeover of Bankwest - not proceeded, the market share of the big four would currently stand at 62.9%.

“Australia’s major banks have shown remarkable stability over the last two years”, said Tony Crossley, head of mortgages and insurance at CoreData-brandmanagement.

“This stability is a significant factor in the mortgage lending growth of big four banks relative to their smaller competitors”.
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Some light at the end of the dark and gloomy mortgage tunnel is beginning to appear, with mortgage brokers beginning to support alternate lenders to the big four banks.

A surprise finding stemming from preliminary results of the CoreData Mortgage Broker Affection study reveals that brokers have not abandoned recommending non-bank lender products altogether.

RAMS, led by the iconic sheep Raymond, had 10 per cent of brokers ranking the non-bank lender in the top five of lenders they would recommend to their clients, with 3 per cent ranking it number one.
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