More accounting firms to enter mortgage space

According to Outsource Financial chief executive Tanya Sale, accountants have stronger databases and stickier clients, making lending solutions a natural addition to their existing services.

“We have seen Chan & Naylor team up with a broker group,” Ms Sale told Mortgage Business.

“We will see plenty more accounting firms going that way,” she said.

“We have some firms under us, some even bigger than Chan & Naylor, who are already doing it.”

Ms Sale said the key driver for accountants is the strength of their existing database of clients that they see much more regularly than brokers.

“They see them all the time,” she said.

“With the mortgage broking side, the really good brokers out there will touch base with their clients, but the accountants and planners see their clients virtually every quarter if they are self-employed and without [a] doubt yearly for their PAYGs.”

Brokers usually keep a loan for five to seven years, but with the accountant they see their clients all the time and there is always something happening with them, Ms Sale said.

“They are there all the way through,” she said. “Accounting clients are stickier.”

Ms Sale believes the move by accountants into mortgages is smart business acumen.

Lending has always gone hand in hand with accounting and financial planning, she said.

Her comments come after last week’s announcement that national accounting firm Chan & Naylor had inked a deal with a mortgage brokerage.

Chan & Naylor announced that it has signed a joint venture agreement with Origin Finance to provide finance broking services to Chan & Naylor clients nationwide.

The new business will be known as Chan and Naylor Finance and will leverage of the firm’s existing operations in property taxation and wealth advice.