Personal Touch Financial Services sales and marketing director Dev Malle’s decision to scrap Moneysupermarket’s broker lead generator business, Paaleads.com, from the PTFS panel came after the price comparison website issued an apology and retracted its faulty research which claimed nine out of 10 mortgage products were available direct to consumer only.
Malle said the damage had already been done and consumers had been mislead and confused by inaccurate research to the detriment of the intermediary market.
And now a string of networks have come out in support of PTFS and Malle's tough stance.
John Cupis, managing director of network Sesame, said: “I can understand why PTFS and Dev have taken the decision they have but it looks like the right arm wasn’t talking to the left arm at Moneysupermarket. That’s unfortunate for the broker market because as we know brokers have access to a significant number of deals that are not available direct to consumer.”
And Gemma Harle, managing director at network Tenet Lime, said she supported Malle’s decision.
“I would support Dev in his taking a stand on this because it’s important to take a stance on something if you feel it’s been done unjustly," she said. "But I don’t think it’ll change the issue of confusion among consumers about what mortgages are available where.”
Harle said that PTFS's decision not to work with Paaleads in the future highlighted this confusion as a bigger problem.
She added: “The Moneysupermarket situation is part of a larger confusion in the market about what’s available from lenders directly and via intermediaries. And because it’s changing constantly, consumers do find it hard to keep up.
“But as to the press release from Moneysupermarket, that public confusion doesn’t excuse their bad figures; an organisation that size shouldn’t have got something like that wrong.”
And Sally Laker, managing director of network Mortgage Intelligence, added: “I do find it strange that as Paaleads is part of Moneysupermarket they’d say something that could be misconstrued as being against the broker market.
“I also think it’s important to recognise that in the current climate, a lot of lenders are doing exclusives through AR networks and the Moneysupermarket claim was a bit of a one-sided view.”
Laker added: “I think my general feeling is that it doesn’t help every time there’s something anti-broker in the market. It is confusing at the moment and there’s some mistrust among consumers. We should be working together with third parties, communicating and it would be good to feel that we’re all on the same page.”
Sesame currently has Paaleads on its panel, Tenet Lime does minimal business with the lead generator, and Mortgage Intelligence does not work with Paaleads at all.
