Following in our Women in Broking series, we interview Michelle Towner, director of Towner Finance, in Perth, WA. What inspired you to pursue a career as a mortgage advisor? There was no one thing that inspired me and to be honest I almost fell into the industry. In 2000 we were buying a property and […]

CX stands for Customer Experience. We use the term CX to refer to the interaction between you and your customer over the duration of their relationship with you. The CX movement has been a catalyst for the redesign of customer processes and interactions to increase customer loyalty, improve relationships and create more true advocates of […]

In the first of our Women in Broking series, we interview Bridget Headland, founder and director of her own financial brokerage, Vision Money, operating in Darwin and Brisbane. What inspired you to pursue a career as a mortgage advisor? I worked within the finance industry, a different role to start with and then I was […]

Our SMART program is unique. You won’t find it anywhere else. We know because we built it. SMART is completely integrated into your lodgement engine — simply process your leads and applications then any aspects of the SMART program that you’ve chosen to utilise are automatically triggered. That means your leads are reminded of the […]

We’ve got some big numbers on our books with over 2,850 brokers around the country. And it’s no surprise we attract some of the best names in the business, brokers we’re so proud to see grow year after year. One particular number we’re super keen to see growing is the number of female brokers we […]

We pride ourselves on being at the cutting edge of industry and regulatory change and take even greater pride in protecting our brokers’ business and reputation by ensuring best practice in all we do. We are continuously working to integrate and automate compliance as much as possible via FLEX. These improvements are there to help […]

Are you taking full advantage of Broker Fact Find to do the legwork to help you speed up a deal? Broker Fact Find is your online customer tool that lets your customer take care of the data entry basics at a time and place that suits them. It helps streamline the application and approval process […]

We like to think we’re breaking new ground in the mortgage broking space in a lot of what we do. From our machine learning applications, our Business Intelligence tool, the new AFG Business platform on its way to help grow commercial volumes, the new broker websites with clever email capture functionality to our ongoing integration […]

We’ve been overwhelmed with the positive feedback we received from our National Broker Conference, have a read of the highlights from the conference. As Australia’s largest mortgage broker event ever held, the impact of the event extends beyond just the two days. We aim to help our AFG members become some of the best educated […]

Last week celebrated the success of our WA AFG brokers at our 2017 State Awards event. These awards are a time to recognise and reward those WA members who are leading the way and who, despite tough conditions, have achieved success and great consumer outcomes this past financial year. We would also like to acknowledge […]

Business Intelligence (BI) is AFG’s interactive reporting tool for our brokers on SMART where they can access data on deals lodged and settled, commission payments, portfolio growth, customer statistics, and key indicators which let you know about the health and growth of your business. A reporting tool that’s just like having your own Business Analyst […]

Each and every one of the 2,850 brokers under the AFG umbrella is different. You have different business models, and we expect you will use the tools available to you in different ways. That’s why, more and more, we are building flexible features into our solutions, helping you use the tools that work for you, […]

At The Adviser Australian Broking Awards 2017, we were very proud to have been awarded in two categories, Aggregator of the Year and Technology Platform of the Year. Technology is a key strategic focus for us and the backbone of our business and the businesses of our 2,850+ brokers. AFG has invested over $70m in technology […]

We don’t like to make blanket statements at AFG. Our industry works in facts, figures and codes. But the words being used to describe AFG’s National Broker Conference 2017 are worth sharing here and the 1,150 who attended will confirm them: An industry first The largest gathering ever of mortgage brokers in Australia Insights from […]

With mortgage brokers now responsible for more than 52% of home lending flows, Australian consumers are clearly indicating a high level of comfort with the service they receive. Today’s results are a testament to our focus on maintaining a strong core broking business, which continues to provide essential competition in the lending market and a […]

Congratulations to all of our SA Award finalists and ultimate winners in each category for the 2016/2017 year. SA Broker Group Of The Year WINNER: Assured Home Loans Second Place: Afirm Financial Third Place: Oracle Lending Solutions SA Broker Of The Year WINNER Leon Spadavecchia, Afirm Financial Second Place Judy Wang, J & H Finance […]

Offering your clients a holistic finance offering is more important than ever. Diversification of your product offerings and your value proposition helps attract a wider range of business development opportunities and it can help safeguard your income when regulatory or policy changes affect one of your market segments. It can create additional income streams and […]

As buzzwords become more ubiquitous, it’s easy to tune out. Disruption, virtual reality, fintech, chatbots, blockchain, robo-somethings, robo-everythings, algorithms, machine learning… the list goes on. The good news is we’re here to wade through it all for you, serving you up what you need to know when you need to know it, and breaking down […]

Our role is to help support and help you grow your business, and we’ve talked a lot on this blog about just some of the ways we achieve these aims. Something somewhat outside our remit, but something that is important to mention, particularly on the back of the presentation held at this year’s National Broker […]

“ABC… it’s as easy as…” If you’re humming the tune of ABC by the Jackson 5, you’re not alone. And they were right when they said it’s easy. Helping fuel growth It’s easy to build your business in a smart and efficient way when you make the most of the innovation and the initiatives AFG […]

The Board of Australian Finance Group (ASX:AFG) is pleased to announce that Mr David Bailey, AFG’s current Interim CEO, has today been appointed as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. In announcing the appointment, AFG Chairman Tony Gill commented that following a review of the market it was clear that David, who has been acting in […]

AFG has today asked the regulator to keep a watchful eye on the big banks to ensure they do not use the Government’s recently announced major bank levy and their own Australian Bankers’ Association (ABA) Retail Banking Remuneration Review as a justification to implement changes designed to reduce the financial viability of providing broking services […]

A year of excellent achievement was celebrated by all at the 2016 Vic/Tas Member Excellence Awards. Over 400 were in attendance at the Grand Ballroom, Sofitel on Collins, making it the biggest Vic/Tas Member Award Ceremony to date.   2015/2016 was a busy and eventful year for our brokers and the industry,  the achievements of […]

Thank you to all those who attended the 2015/2016 SA AFG Awards. SA Champion Loan Writer Leon Spadavecchia – Afirm Financial SA Champion Business Assured Home Loans For a list of all the finalists and winners, please scroll to the end of this post. Next year all AFG members will be invited to the AFG National Broker […]

Thank you to all those who attended today’s 2015/2016 NSW AFG Awards.   For a list of all the finalists and winners, please scroll to the end of this post.     Next year all AFG members will be invited to the AFG National Broker Conference in Sydney. It is destined to be one of […]

We are very proud to share with you the awards received by AFG at the recent Australian Broking Awards. AFG was awarded Technology Platform of the Year and Broker Marketing Platform of the Year. Our investment in technology is one of our key business differentiators and one of the key reasons behind our growth in […]

Thank you to all those who attended last week’s 2016 WA Gala Awards. The night was a huge success with close to 450 in attendance at Crown Perth. The Gala Awards, is an occasion to recognise and reward our West Australian members, on the back of their success over the past financial year. In what […]

Here’s our brief guide to the different types of media available to you if you’re considering paid advertising. Every dollar is precious and it’s imperative to achieve the greatest return on your investment in order to grow your business, so we’ve briefly outlined a few pros and cons about each of the main media options […]

We are inviting every Australian mortgage broker to attend an important bipartisan session on this subject; this is your invitation to take a seat at the table. We need you there. This year sees the mortgage broking industry face additional pressures and responsibilities as the conversations around regulatory recommendation and review really hot up. As […]

Have you set up your social media business pages and run out of energy or time to keep them current and updated? Don’t be ashamed, it’s ok to admit it. You’re not the only one! Many of our members tell us they just don’t have the time for social media. We hear you, you’re busy […]

The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) Excellence Awards are presented to members of the Association who display exceptional practice in mortgage and finance. We are very proud to announce the following AFG members present in the finalists: RESIDENTIAL FINANCE BROKER AWARD SA KD Singh – Money Merchants Financial Services Leon Spadavecchia – Afirm […]

AFG has provided ASIC with a written response to the scoping considerations and the questions posed in the scoping document for the current Broker Remuneration Review. You can view AFG’s submission here. The MFAA’s submission is here. AFG will be continuing to engage with ASIC as the review progresses, and I would welcome any feedback […]

Leading mortgage broker AFG congratulated their members taking home awards from The Adviser Australian Broking Awards in Sydney today and took the time to celebrate their own success in winning two award categories. AFG General Manager Sales and Operations Mark Hewitt was in Sydney for the awards, “I would like to congratulate AFG members who […]

AFG recently approached its lender panel seeking public endorsement of the broker channel. We asked each national residential lender to publicly endorse the importance of the broker channel and to echo the many dangers of any move towards a fee for service model. We are pleased to let you know we have received endorsements from […]