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Broker References
INTRODUCTION
The Finance Brokers Association of Australasia Limited. (FBAA) understands the needs of Australian Credit Licence Holders to determine whether an incoming broker has a history of non-compliance. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released ASIC Corporations and Credit (Reference Checking and Information Sharing Protocol) Instrument 2021/429 (the Instrument) to assist Australian Credit Licence holders and Australian Financial Service Licence holders to share information in relation to prospective representatives of the recruiting licensee.
As the FBAA is neither Australian Credit Licence holder nor a Australian Financial Service Licence holder, in order to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the FBAA is only able to provide information about a person’s membership and disciplinary history with that member’s consent. This document sets out the procedure which will allow licence holders to request information from the FBAA. All information disclosed by the FBAA pursuant to this process is strictly confidential and must not be disclosed to third parties without the consent of the FBAA and the relevant member.
Please note that utilising this process should be aware that this process will not necessarily disclose all matters that are relevant to engaging a broker or authorising the broker to act on your behalf, and those independent investigations and searches should be conducted by you. For example, this process may not disclose matters that have not been formally subject to the FBAA’s complaint process such as any complaints that are not in respect of the member’s compliance with the FBAA’s constitution, disciplinary rules or other matters beyond FBAA’s complaint process or any matters in respect of the member’s acts or omissions prior to them joining the FBAA. Please note that neither the FBAA nor any of its officers, employees or agents accept any liability to persons or businesses who request information from FBAA pursuant to this process.
STEP 1: MEMBER CONSENT
It will be easiest for all parties involved if the member of the FBAA provides their consent before an approach is made to the FBAA.
This will save time because the FBAA will be able to consider a complete request rather than review your request and then need to seek consent of the member.
Consent can be given by the member signing a form or by providing an email. However, if an email is to be provided, the member must send the email from the address that they have registered with the FBAA for the purpose of their membership. If the email addresses do not match, then the FBAA will not be able to determine whether the member has in fact consented because it does not know whether the email purportedly containing the consent belongs that of the FBAA’s member. If the email address the member uses with the FBAA is not known, the member does not have an email address registered with the FBAA or the FBAA’s records do not match the email address used, then a form will need to be executed.
A copy of the form consent and email consent is below:
Broker Consent Form – Writable PDF
STEP 2: REQUEST
A party requesting information about a FBAA member can be made by emailing referencecheck@fbaa.com.au.
A copy of a standardised request is available below.
This request assumes Step 1 has been completed.
If Step 1 has not been completed, then it will take additional time for the FBAA to process any request because it will need to seek consent from the member.
Request for a Member Reference – Writable PDF
STEP 3: RESPONSE
Once a party has made a request, the FBAA will check the request to ensure it is complete and whether the member’s consent has been provided.
If the member’s consent has not been provided then the FBAA will contact the member directly. If consent is not provided or the person is not a member of the FBAA such that the FBAA cannot contact the person, then we will write to you to advise that we cannot complete your request.
Where the person is a member and has provided a consent, the FBAA will provide a letter confirming:
- Whether the person is a member of the FBAA;
- Whether any formal complaints have been made to the FBAA in respect of the person;
- Where there has been a complaint against the person, the general nature of the complaint. We will not provide information about the nature of a current complaint except to confirm its existence as we are required to ensure our members receive fair treatment. We will require further consent of the member to provide information about any current complaints.