Provider: National Bank
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10/01/2010 8:00:00 AM
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Seeing a need to increase its broker status program, National Bank recently decided to not only increase its status tiers, but also the amount of choices that brokers are given access to for rewards. Sebastien Kuperhause, national sales manager, recently spoke to CMP about some of the changes
National Bank has decided to launch a new status program. Could you tell us about it?
After going out and conducting five broker panels in August and July in order to get feedback about National Bank and its MVP program, we have taken our existing programs and just turned them up a notch by giving the brokers what they were asking for, which is choice.
We've given the broker three choices: You can sell it as a value proposition where you cover the lawyers and appraisers; or maybe you need to make more money to help offset some of the client's penalty, then you can do that too; the third option can be, 'you know what, I just need to have the lowest rate all the time.'
How many tiers are there and how do they work?
To gain access to the program you need 15 funded deals. And it's within our fiscal year, so Nov. 1 to Oct. 31. Tier two starts at 37 deals, tier three starts at 50 and tier four starts at 100. We felt that a fair process was to go by deals funded, not by dollar amount. It's not fair to expect someone in Atlantic Canada to fund $10 million dollars like someone in Alberta or British Columbia, so we've built it in that way to make it fair across the board. Is there any efficiency tied into that?
Currently there are no efficiency ratios required, but it is something we will be working on. We focused on launching the program before 2010, but efficiency will most likely be tied into it for 2011. We've also created a different MVP program to work with the access desks or hubs that a lot of brokerage firms have created. We have a separate program to access all these brokerages' access desks, and if the brokers use this but then decides later on that there is an advantage to being independent, then they can change from one program to the other and take advantage of the other MVP program.
What exactly does being a part of the MVP program get the broker?
The MVP program can get you rate discount, free appraisals, cash back, extra compensation and, the big one for us that we started last year and we're doing it again is that, if you fund 100 deals, we're going to give the broker $15,000 to go travel the world. The idea is to just go travel, to do something with the money that you would have never had done. A lot of people say I'd love to go to Australia but I just can't justify the money. You can now go to Australia and fly first class if you want.
The decision to go by deals instead of volume. How was this determined?
It allows small market and big market players to be on a level playing field. That's really what it comes down to. We just wanted to keep it simple and broker-focused.
When are the changes effective?
They were effective on Nov. 2. If brokers have further questions, they should contact their local BDM.