Broker: National Bank changes represent necessary paradigm shift

National Bank’s move to efficiency is sending an undeniable message to other brokerages, says one leading broker – one they can’t afford to ignore.

National Bank’s move to efficiency is sending an undeniable message to other brokerages, says one leading broker – one they can’t afford to ignore.

“Brokerages better make the smart shift and soon.... for the industry’s sake,” Michael Mullis of Mortgage Teacher told MortgageBrokerNews.ca.

The shift Mullis is speaking of, of course, is the shift to valuing efficiency over volume; an attitude rewarded by National Bank’s new guidelines.

“Why are all lenders shifting their bonuses towards efficiency?” Mullins mused. “I’m happy most are sticking to their guns (because) clearly the lenders are noticing that taking up the underwriters’ time and possibly not even getting paid for that time... well, for simple terms – is a waste of money.”

National Bank announced a number of changes to its mortgage broker services, including rewarding more efficient brokers with a higher payout.

“We believe that efficiency needs to overtake the volume and we believe we will see more of that over the coming years," Mark Squire told MortgageBrokerNews.ca.  "We are the ones leading that charge by our actions to put more emphasis on efficiency.”

It’s an emphasis Mullins believes will reward quality over quantity.

“The world we live in is starting to trend back to Quality... maximizing time and money together rather than wasting it, and perhaps the lenders and banks are trending this way too,” he said. “We as brokers should know better than most (that) we are business for self; many choose this to get out of the hourly world and the way of thinking you have to exchange time for money.”