The Finance Brokers Association of Australia has welcomed the appointment of a new female board member, with women now making up a third of the board.
At its recent AGM, the FBAA board appointed Christine Green (pictured above left), joining two other women on the nine-member board – Kim Szigeti and Felicity Heffernan.
The other board members are FBAA managing director Peter White (pictured above right), Tony Carter (chair), Stephen Rasmussen (treasurer), Clive Kirkpatrick, Barry Honey and Nick Wormald. Rasmussen was re-elected for another term on the board while the other members were not up for re-election.
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Green is a business capital BDM at Liberty and has more than 20 years of experience in the bank banking and finance experience. The move to appoint another female to the board was hailed by White.
“Christine is a skilled business development manager, coach and mentor and she is a passionate advocate for finance brokers and diversity in the industry,” White said. “The FBAA has worked to engage more women across the industry for many years and will continue to do so.”
At the AGM, the FBAA honoured those who had gone above and beyond over the past year by issuing commendations to Madeleine Dart from outsource Financial, Peter Ellis from Finance Broker Mento, past state presidents Trent Carter (Western Australia), Joff O’Shannessy (South Australia), Nick Wormald (NSW) and Christine Green (Queensland) and a number of FBAA staff members.
The FBAA board also appointed fellow members including Sam White of Loan Market Group, Dien Le of Finance & Coffee, Krystal Camilleri of Jellyfish Marketing and Jayden Vecchio of Hunter Galloway Finance Pty Ltd.
White said he applauded all those who helped make 2022 such an outstanding year.
“The industry as a whole can be proud of the year that was,” he said.
“From the FBAA’s perspective, 2022 saw all-time record membership numbers and member satisfaction higher than ever before. We exist for our members, to champion them, to help them thrive and to work closely with governments, regulators and other stakeholders to create the best environment for them to build successful businesses. Through the efforts of our team and our members, we have also scored some great goals for the entire industry.”
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The FBAA has been pursuing broker clawbacks, net-of-offset commissions and engagement with the new Labor government throughout 2022, all which were hot topics at the FBAA’s 2022 national industry conference on the Gold Coast on November 11.
Almost 700 brokers attended the peak broker body’s event held at SeaWorld.
In his year in review speech at the conference, White said he was eager to investigate whether banks were profiteering through broker clawbacks.
“There is a whole lot of things going on in the background that we will bring to the table and document to get forensic accounts involved as we see it,” he said.
“I am also looking forward to speaking with the attorney-general about net-of-offset accounts, because we believe there is a challenge with certain laws sitting around the services. Add to that lender cashback offers, which I believe need a greater focus from government.”
