Mortgage Broker

24 | spring 2018 cmba-achc.ca CmB magazIne we at Canadian Mortgage Broker recently sat down with Luc Bernard, M3 Group's president and CEO, for a quick Q&A, to cover trends in the industry, acquisition strategies, consumer lending, B20, digital transformation and who really is the No. 1 non-bank mortgage brokerage in Canada. An entrepreneurial executive from Montreal, Bernard spent 30 years in the financial services sector in various leadership roles at some of Canada's largest banks and insurance companies. In 2015, aer spending more than five years as executive vice-president of Laurentian Bank's retail and commercial division, Bernard le corporate Canada to explore potential industries in need of major transformation. Shortly aer, Bernard and a collective group of strategic shareholders acquired the highly respected Multi-Pret Mortgages/Mortgage Alliance, and began M3's journey of the type of growth never seen in the non-bank mortgage origination sector. In three short years, Bernard has more than quadrupled M3's annual loan volumes to over $44 billion and its broker network to over 6,000. Today, the mortgage giant reigns the origination roost as the undisputed No. 1 brokerage in Canada. Canadian Mortgage Broker: for the leader in your space, you folks have chosen to take a low profile in the industry. Can you give us a snapshot of the M3 group? luc Bernard: e elevator speech? DNA. Simply put, we're uniquely a broker-led and consumer-obsessed organization that works super hard to focus on three primary businesses – mortgages, ancillary products (like credit cards, insurance) and lastly, technology (our industry- leading BOSS platform). It's what differentiates us in the industry from our competitors, and why we've been able to sustain impressive year- over-year growth since we got started. CMB: obviously, you're doing all the right stuff there. Can you share a little bit of how you got to where you're at today? lB: We knew from the get-go that if we were going to truly transform this space for brokers and the families we seek to serve… scale and scope matters more than ever to stay competitive. To ensure our soundness, we stayed very disciplined on developing a clear and confident growth strategy underpinned by two key growth drivers – acquisition and innovation. Acquisition to offer stakeholders a broader, more diversified range of products, services and solutions. Innovation, because it allows us to leverage technology, digitalize our presence to drive broker attraction/retention and nurture overall customer experience. Staying a step ahead of the ever-changing consumer landscape is critical in this evolving ecosystem. Again, in today's "always on" world, size and scale will separate the winners from the others. e great news here is thanks to the collective appetite across our family of brands to generate long-term growth, we now have both. CMB: Do you see more acquisitions on the horizon? lB: We're always actively looking to grow synergies and significantly expand our footprint as an organization. Last year when we welcomed Verico into our family of brands, it was a game changer for us. Not only did it position us as the undisputed and premier brand in non- bank mortgage origination across Canada, but it clearly demonstrated to the industry our elevated broker-centric focus as an organization. Ultimately everything we do, whether it's through acquisition, innovation, marketing or brand awareness, is to set our brokers up for success. M3's broker network (now over 6,000 strong and growing) remains the biggest driver of our success. So, to circle back on your original question, unequivocally yes… we are looking to grow. CMB: in 2015, your goal was to carefully extend your balance sheet by doubling annual mortgage volumes to $25 billion by end of 2017. you're now over $44 billion. What can we expect from the M3 group in 2018? lB: I'd say you're going to see three things from us in 2018 to build an even stronger M3: more growth to extend our reach and capture opportunity in today's thriving ecosystem; more innovation when it comes to digital technology and tools so we can continue to be more responsive to our brokers and the families they serve; finally, more traction for us when it comes to profiling our successes in the marketplace. We have an amazing success story to tell and in 2018 we will be more proactive in articulating it. CMB: What would you say to your folks about the headwinds out there? lB: No doubt the lending environment is challenging. anks to B20 [the new OSFI guideline on residential mortgage underwriting practices and procedures] and increasingly stringent and complex regulations combined with rising [interest] rates, greater scrutiny of credit products and practices, our brokers are in M3 Group founder and CEO Luc Bernard on how his broker network has become the largest in Canada in its space Game Changer CEO Chat

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