{"id":12701,"date":"2025-03-31T05:49:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T05:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=12701"},"modified":"2025-03-31T05:49:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T05:49:01","slug":"exclusive-td-levels-the-playing-field-with-real-time-pricing-for-brokers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=12701","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: TD levels the playing field with real-time pricing for brokers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Speaking at a conference this week, TD\u2019s Devon Ajram, Vice President of Broker Services, announced that real-time pricing will go live in the broker channel on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

TD\u2019s real-time pricing\u2014already available to its Mobile Mortgage Specialist (MMS) team since October\u2014will now be extended to the broker channel, putting brokers on equal footing with TD\u2019s other sales channels.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Devon
Devon Ajram, TD\u2019s Vice President, Broker Services<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll effectively have parity with our retail and MMS channels,\u201d said Ajram. \u201cYou\u2019ll have instant rate decisioning at your disposal\u2026 so that you only get one commitment issued.\u201d<\/p>\n

He confirmed that more details will be shared by the bank in the coming week.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy entire leadership team is going to be very engaged with everybody across the country to make sure what we\u2019re doing\u2014and what we\u2019re transforming from a pricing perspective\u2014is clearly understood,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the benefits are very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ajram acknowledged that the previous model\u2014where brokers often found themselves disadvantaged compared to TD\u2019s other sales teams\u2014wasn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we realized quite quickly is this idea of trying to impose rules on 15,000 brokers, 20,000 branch employees, another 1,200 MMS, just didn\u2019t make any sense whatsoever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

TD is also introducing a professional policy to the broker channel later in April. Designed to help brokers serve clients with complex credit or high-earning professions, it\u2019s a policy already available in TD\u2019s other channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to share that\u2026 we\u2019re going to be introducing a professional policy to the broker channel\u2014finally,\u201d Ajram said. \u201cThat\u2019ll be another tool in your toolbox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brokers say the change is overdue<\/h3>\n
\n
\"Leigh
Leigh Graham<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Brokers say the move is a positive one\u2014and a long time coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost brokers recognize that banks who play in the broker space have their own models\u2026 and they compete with their own internal sales forces,\u201d said Leigh Graham, mortgage broker and co-owner at The Mortgage Professionals. \u201cThat said, there shouldn\u2019t be competitive pricing among different sales sources from the same brand. Very simply, there just should not be.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also noted how the old structure created uncertainty at the start of a deal. \u201cBrokers selling TD products don\u2019t necessarily know what price they\u2019re going to end up with at the start of a transaction,\u201d Graham said. \u201cIt\u2019s good to see it\u2019s being acknowledged, and we look forward to improved competition and transparency across all of TD\u2019s sales platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton Wilkins, team leader at Clinton Wilkins Mortgage Team, said the changes could also have a real impact on both pricing and compensation strategies.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Clinton
Clinton Wilkins<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been some disparity issues, and I think this is very common with all bank lenders,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could see different pricing online, through a mobile mortgage specialist, in a branch, or through the broker channel\u2014and customers didn\u2019t understand why.\u201d<\/p>\n

In TD\u2019s case, Wilkins said brokers were often at a disadvantage, with rates as much as 20 to 50+ basis points higher than other channels, \u201cWhich is a lot to swallow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed to TD\u2019s practice last year of frequently repricing files manually through pricing exceptions\u2014sometimes offering up to 100 basis points off the rate sheet, with no impact on broker compensation. \u201cThey were basically buying business last year,\u201d he added. \u201cI think some of that capital was originally earmarked for the U.S. acquisition they ended up pulling the plug on, and they just redirected it into the Canadian mortgage market.\u201d<\/p>\n

With real-time pricing in place, Wilkins expects more clarity going forward. \u201cI think now what we\u2019re going to see is we\u2019ll actually know what the ceiling and floor is with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chad Wilson, broker-owner at Ideal Mortgage Solutions, agreed that the lack of upfront pricing clarity has long been a pain point for brokers.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the previous TD structure, the pace of approval on the rate requests was not in line with the pace of the market,\u201d he said. \u201cNot having clarity on rate up front really hinders the broker\u2019s ability to plan with clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson added that the new approach should lead to both volume growth and operational gains. \u201cI do believe the changes will have an immediate impact on TD\u2019s origination volumes, as well as their efficiencies in the broker channel\u2014specifically funding ratios.\u201d<\/p>\n

A deeper challenge: channel conflict and customer experience<\/h3>\n

John Webster, former head of Scotia Mortgage Authority, said TD\u2019s changes reflect broader issues that major lenders face when trying to balance multiple distribution models.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t treat a customer differently because of what door they came in on a rate basis,\u201d he said at the CMBA conference on Thursday. \u201cThat\u2019s a bad customer experience, a bad outcome. Bad for the consumer, bad for the lender, bad for the shareholder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Webster, former CEO of Maple Trust, who led its integration into Scotiabank following its acquisition in 2006, said managing internal competition between branch, mobile, and broker channels has always been a complex challenge\u2014and one that takes years to solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took three years,\u201d he said. \u201cI had to offer a Maple product, they had Scotia Express [Scotia\u2019s online mortgage hub, eHOME] that had to offer the Scotia product with different features that weren\u2019t available to brokers, and then the branches were hostile to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

To help manage the channel conflict, Scotia adopted \u201crules of engagement,\u201d including a first-touch policy to reduce overlap between teams.<\/p>\n

Still, Webster believes this tension is far from resolved across the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is sort of silly season right now,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it will right-size itself. Eventually, you can\u2019t sustain the practice of charging different rates to consumers. It\u2019s going to come back and bite you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that while the broker channel has higher origination costs, it\u2019s still one of the most effective ways to bring in new customers\u2014particularly on the purchase side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to bring new customers to an institution, and if you want to do purchases, the best place\u2014the only place\u2014you can have success, in my view, is in the broker channel.\u201d<\/p>\n

A signal of long-term commitment<\/h3>\n

Ajram emphasized that these changes aren\u2019t just about solving past frustrations, but about demonstrating TD\u2019s continued investment in the broker channel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope you see this as a commitment that TD is demonstrating to the channel,\u201d he said. \u201cWe invest meaningfully here. We\u2019re here for the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the shift to real-time pricing and the introduction of a professional policy are part of a broader strategy to reassert TD\u2019s competitiveness in the mortgage space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it solves most of the challenges that you\u2019ve faced with TD,\u201d Ajram said. \u201cYou\u2019re an important part of what we do to drive the business, and I\u2019m really excited to compete again\u2014ferociously\u2014in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilkins called the change a welcome and overdue step, but also voiced cautious optimism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my only caution would be that, as we know, strategies can change with the bank very rapidly in a pendulum swing,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope there will be good uptake, and I do hope that even the floor and the ceiling are at parity, and that we can control the pricing the customer is going to be offered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visited 2,821 times, 203 visit(s) today<\/p>\n

broker channel broker channel banks Chad Wilson channel conflict Clinton Wilkins Devon Ajram John Webster professional policy td<\/p>\n

Last modified: March 30, 2025<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Speaking at a conference this week, TD\u2019s Devon Ajram, Vice President of Broker Services, announced that real-time pricing will go live in the broker channel on Tuesday. TD\u2019s real-time pricing\u2014already available to its Mobile Mortgage Specialist (MMS) team since October\u2014will now be extended to the broker channel, putting brokers on equal footing with TD\u2019s other<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[763,3701,5263,4082,5262,2064,1274],"class_list":{"0":"post-12701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mortgage","8":"tag-brokers","9":"tag-exclusive","10":"tag-field","11":"tag-levels","12":"tag-playing","13":"tag-pricing","14":"tag-realtime"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}