PAA and NZMBA get together

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[UPDATED] The Professional Advisers Association and the NZ Mortgage Brokers Association have announced plans to start closely working together.

Thursday, August 4th 2011, 12:12AM 2 Comments

The announcement was made at a financial services dinner last night.

NZMBA chairman Darren Pratley said that the two associations will create a joint board and work together for the benefit of members and consumers.

PAA has around 900 members and NZMBA has around 450 members.

The composition of the joint board is yet to be decided however Angus Dale-Jones has agreed to be an independent member.

Pratley said the proposal was not a merger of the two associations and that it would take time to work through the issues.

Members of both associations have been emailed more information on the proposal.

PAA president Peter Leitch said the culture of the two organisations were similar and members of both associations tended to write home loan and life insurance business.

In recent years there has been more cross over of product sales, particularly with mortgage brokers moving into the life insurance advisory space.

Pratley said that although industry associations had been given a hard time in recent years they “are critical and important.”

He said they play a key role in giving members a voice, particularly with government, regulators and the media. They also provide education and training services to support members.

The two associations say the decision is partly in response to regulation as it imposes a new regulatory environment and a broad range of professional responsibilities on advisers.

"Our boards are determined to support the significant current and ongoing investment our members are making in their professionalism," Leitch said. "We see that there are many benefits for our associations working together and we are excited to see this first step in creating a new association."

"We realised that incremental change would get us only some of the way.  So we've opted to consolidate, collaborate and revamp our entire approach to what we see as five core areas: advocacy, training, peer support, ethics, and member services."

Pratley said the emphasised the broad focus of the new organisation is about operating more efficiently.

"This is all about doing our bit to strengthen the reputation of financial advisers and give consumers really good reasons to use the services of an adviser from our joint associations."

Pratley and Leitch said that discussions were at an early stage and consultation with their memberships was "absolutely vital".

The new board will be comprised of three existing board members from each of the PAA and the NZMBA.

The two associations are in the process of settling a heads of agreement for the new board over the next three months to facilitate their working together. 

Both the NZMBA and PAA remain committed to the joint industry body, FAANZ, and working with other industry associations to promote confidence in the financial services sector. 

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