GOLDEN AWARDS

GENWORTH FINANCIAL GOLDEN MORGIE FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY
Recognised throughout Australia for lifetime achievement in the mortgage industry, the Golden Morgie is the highest honour and most coveted award at the AMAs. The award recognises an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the industry as a whole.

WESTPAC AUSTRALIAN BROKER OF THE YEAR
Australian Broker of the Year is recognised for extraordinary performance in both obtaining volume, and providing excellent customer service. Australian Broker of the Year is one of the highest possible accolades offered to the mortgage industry, and winners of the national awards are entered as finalists for this coveted category. The finalists will be announced on the night.

AUSTRALIAN BDM OF THE YEAR
Australian Business Development Manager (BDM) of the Year is recognised for their outstanding ability in building and managing the broker and lender relationship. Winners of the national awards are entered as finalists for this important category. The finalists will be announced on the night.

COMMONWEALTH BANK QUALITY AUSTRALIAN ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Recognised for obtaining excellence in their first two years in the mortgage industry, Australian Rookie of the Year makes the calls and closes the sales before you've blinked. Rookie of the Year understands the mortgage business and reminds us of the business achievement that is possible even within a short time period. Winners of the national Young Gun categories are entered as finalists for this coveted award. The finalists will be announced on the night. 

NATIONAL AWARDS

ALI GROUP BROKER OF THE YEAR - INSURANCE (MORTGAGE PROTECTION & LIFE)
BROKER OF THE YEAR - SHORT-TERM LENDING
BROKER OF THE YEAR - SME/DEBTOR FINANCE
As brokers build their businesses to offer clients a one stop shop for many complementary products, so this year's AMAs look to recognise those brokers who are grasping the opportunity with both hands.  These awards are not about pure volume, but are to recognise those brokers that can demonstrate a commitment to a diversification strategy in insurance, short-term lending and SME/debtors finance.

ST.GEORGE BANK BROKER OF THE YEAR - INDEPENDENT
Aggregators, brokerages and brokers themselves will be polled to find out who deserves to be on our finalists list. Like the other broker categories, Your Mortgage magazine will ask readers to nominate anyone who has provided them with excellent service. We will give extra credence to those in a position to assess brokers' performances objectively. Finalists will be able to provide supporting documentation for the submission to the judges.

ST.GEORGE BANK BROKER OF THE YEAR - FRANCHISE
Franchise operations and brokers at franchises are invited to nominate for this category. Your Mortgage magazine will also ask readers to nominate anyone who has provided them with excellent service. The nominations of the franchise operators themselves will be given extra importance, given that they will provide a more objective view of how a particular broker is performing. Finalists will be invited to provide references from bosses and, if possible, clients for us to give to the judging panel.

BROKER OF THE YEAR - NON-CONFORMING
This award recognises those who are the stand out performers in the non-conforming sector. Although brokers can put themselves forward as contenders for this category, special attention will be paid to nominations made by non-conforming lenders, who are best placed to judge brokers' performances objectively. Finalists will be invited to submit any documentation that may support their nomination to the AMA judging panel.

IMB BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES BROKER OF THE YEAR - COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
This award has been designed to recognise the standout mortgage brokers who specialise in commercial lending, or those who have substantial success in funding commercial real estate purchases. Brokers can nominate themselves, but our researchers will be directly contacting commercial lenders to find out who the real stars are before giving their findings to the panel. Finalists will be invited to provide references from bosses and, if possible, clients for us to give to the judging panel.

COMMONWEALTH BANK QUALITY YOUNG GUN OF THE YEAR - FRANCHISE
We invite all franchise operators (and brokers themselves) to nominate their outstanding stars who have been in the business for less than two years. As with the other categories, all relevant information on the finalists will be forwarded to our judges.

COMMONWEALTH BANK QUALITY YOUNG GUN OF THE YEAR - INDEPENDENT
Like category 8, this award is restricted to brokers who have been in the business for two years or less. Aggregators, lender BDMs and brokerages will all be invited to nominate, along with brokers themselves. Finalists will be invited to submit any documentation that may support their nomination, which will be submitted to the AMA judging panel.

BEST BANK BDM
BDMs are an essential ingredient in the lender/broker relationship, and this award recognises the BDMs that are most respected by the broking community. To assess this category we turn exclusively to the broking community to tell us who should be a finalist. Finalists' details are then sent to our judging panel, along with feedback from the brokers themselves about the person in question.

BEST NON-BANK BDM
This award closely reflects the previous award, but instead recognises best non-bank BDM (including mortgage managers).

PEPPER HOME LOANS BEST AGGREGATOR BDM
This award closely reflects the two above awards, but recognises instead best aggregator BDM.

VOW FINANCIAL BROKERAGE OF THE YEAR (≤5 staff )
Nomination is open to everyone, with the criteria being the total number of staff (or full-time equivalents) is less than or equal to five. This figure includes all loan writers and support staff across all company offices/branches. Finalists will be invited to provide extra submissions such as client feedback, communitybased work or aggregator/lender testimonials for the AMA judges.

MORTGAGE HOUSE BROKERAGE OF THE YEAR (>6 staff)
The process is identical to the above award, with the staff criteria favouring mid-size to larger brokerage operations.

NATIONAL SERVICE AWARDS

BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM AN INDIVIDUAL OFFICE
Customer service is an incredibly important measure of any brokerage's long-term success. For this award we turn to the country's biggest mortgage consumer magazine Your Mortgage and website ymm.com.au to poll our industry's clients and find out who is providing all the bells and whistles that make our best performers so good. The finalists from this selection process will be invited to provide further details on the extra mile they go to give customers the perfect 10/10 for service. Finally, our researchers will mystery shop the elite and rate each brokerage across a number of categories such as product knowledge, telephone service and a number of other important issues identified by consumers in our survey.

BEST INDUSTRY ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN (PRINT/DIGITAL/TV)
This award recognises the best individual ad campaign by anyone in the industry TO brokers. We're looking for what has made the best impact to brokers, not just the ads that they remember, but whether our readers can remember the message that the ad campaign was carrying. This award recognises those who are getting their message most effectively to the mortgage community.  Our exhaustive research invites brokers to tell us which campaigns and messages they can most remember over the past year - who had the cutthrough message? We invite readers to nominate campaigns for how memorable they are, and for being able to communicate the message behind the campaign.
Having counted the votes and narrowed the categories down, we will then invite all the finalists to give us a complete set of campaign materials, explain the goals of the campaign, and give us any examples to demonstrate the success of the campaign.  All these materials will be given to our advertising judging panel - figures from some of Australia's most respected agencies and the AMA main panel, who judge not only the advertising, but perhaps more importantly, the effect of the campaign on the industry.

BEST INDUSTRY SERVICE
We ask readers who that industry service provider is that always goes the extra mile to give them the service that keeps them coming back. This category is judged by brokers. Once we have compiled a list of finalists, we will invite them to submit details that they believe show their commitment to service. These submissions, together with a selection of comments from people who have voted, will then be provided to the judging panel.

AUSTRALIAN FIRST MORTGAGE BEST NEW OFFICE ON THE BLOCK
The new office category is for an individual office or branch that is less than two years old. Brokers can nominate their own businesses, and our researchers will also contact aggregator groups and major franchises to submit details of their standout performers. A selected list of finalists will be asked to then provide further details about their business and why they feel that it deserves to win. This data will be given to the AMA judging panel.

MOST EFFECTIVE INTERNET PRESENCE
The internet is becoming an increasingly important medium for communication within industry groups. This category recognises those within the industry who have harnessed this medium to provide brokers with practical, effective and easily accessible facilities to help them with their day-to-day business.
For this category we ask brokers to tell us who provides them with the internet facing services that help them most in their daily business. Where do they refer to most on the net? Which aggregator, franchisor, lender or service provider gives them the web services that help them grow their business, or that helps them day-to-day? Our finalists will all be presented to the internet panel of judges, who will include website specialists, technical consultants and the rest of the AMA panel.

FRANCHISE OPERATION OF THE YEAR
Our researchers have already carried out telephone surveys of franchisees, and asked them to let us know what support and other attributes were most important from a franchise. Using this data we call other franchisees, and ask them to rate on a scale of 1-5 the top attributes that our survey has returned. We then calculate a total score, and rating, and ask our finalists to provide us with a list of the costs and benefits of operating their franchise to give to the judges.