FAST chief executive Brendan Wright explains how the aggregator’s diversified approach to lending is helping Australian businesses grow into successful companies.
Speaking to The Adviser, Mr Wright said the third-party channel has evolved into more than just a segment of the financial services industry.
“The broking industry has provided a whole new opportunity for business owners,” he said. “What still plays out, to be quite frank, is that it’s all about mortgages in this industry, which is important, don’t get me wrong, that’s critical, but the industry has been for some time about more than mortgages.”
Mr Wright said brokers are in the unique position of being able to establish businesses in financial services that deliver to other business owners as well.
Business owners are now actively seeking experienced brokers, he said.
“There’s 2.8 million small businesses in this country. The reality is for a broker in our industry anywhere from 10 to 30 per cent of their client base are small business owners.”
One of FAST’s key points of difference is its strong support for brokers looking to diversify into asset and equipment finance.
“FAST has always been known as the aggregator that has brokers who do things like business lending, commercial funding and asset finance and what we’re doing is creating awareness of that within the industry,” he said.
“We have a referral model/hub called FAST Asset Finance where brokers who know they want to meet this need for their client but don’t want to write themselves can refer it to a hub of ours where we’ll do it for them.”
He added: “What that means is they get to look after their client, the client gets their needs met and the broker gets to protect their client [retention] as well.”
FAST is the gold partner of The Adviser’s upcoming New Revenue Streams Boot Camp event in Sydney on 27 October and Melbourne on 29 October.
The intensive one-day boot camp will get brokers business-fit and ready to launch new revenue streams in their business, generate referrals that spread like wildfire among SMEs and create simple marketing strategies to reach new clients that want more.
