If you are considering doing CeMAP training to become a mortgage advisor, then this will be of great interest to you.
Insurance company Zurich conducted research recently, which showed an alarming statistic. It revealed that more than half of adults in the UK have never sought financial advice and around 20 per cent thought it was too expensive. In fact, one in eight relied on friends and family for advice.
“The sheer number of people walking blind into their financial decision-making presents a disturbing trend and an alarming picture for the future,” says Tony Solomon, a director at Zurich.
Trust is also an issue, as according to the Financial Services Consumer Panel research earlier this year, consumer were:
‘generally confused about the type of advice they are receiving’ and ‘resigned to not getting the best advice when they talk to a financial adviser’
However, at times like these, advice has never been so important and many mortgage advisors are busier than ever. The Association of Independent Financial Advisers (AIFA) suggested it needs to be clearer what the difference is between advice and sales.
Some consumers are not sure about the three different types of advisors:
- Tied – tied to one lender and can only recommend their products, e.g. a bank
- Multi-tied – tied to a panel of lenders and can only recommend their products
- Independent – not tied, can recommend any product on the market, e.g. IFA’s or independent mortgage advisers
It is also still common for advisers to receive commission from lenders and this too has been criticised in case it affects the decision of the adviser, although it shouldn’t.
Now, the FSA has declared it wants to make radical changes. It wants to change the market so there can only be two types of mortgage adviser: one that gives advice and one that sells. To be declared as independent, it wants to set strict criterion that must be met – and one of those is not accepting commission from lenders, but purely payment from the customer.
Changes are unlikely to take effect for more than a year yet, but should increase the number of people who would like to and will take mortgage advice so it would seem that now could be just the right time to take the CeMAP qualification and train as a mortgage adviser.
