FR: How do you see the mortgage market changing over the next 12 months?
I see reliance on the intermediary market continuing to increase, with lenders competing more for their share, more product innovation, more demand for fixed rate lending and the return of some former mainstream areas of lending which have now become niche. I am also hoping for a bit more clarity from the regulators regarding the grey areas of MMR. I expect more products to become ERC free - we have not had any ERCs on our entire variable and short term fixed rate product range for some years now and I think that other lenders will start to follow us.
FR: Do you feel the relationship between lenders and intermediaries is evolving and if so, how?
Yes, I think relationships have become a lot more equal, with lenders realising the importance of introduced applications to their business. At H&R most of our product pricing and policy decisions are made with the introduced market in mind and we have a policy of never dual pricing. I think that collecting feedback from introducers and actually using it to make changes is vital. We recently made a number of policy changes based almost entirely on what our intermediary partners were telling us and have seen an almost immediate impact on our service standards and satisfaction index as a result. It’s a win/win situation.
FR: What benefits do brokers see by working with smaller lenders such as Hinckley & Rugby – do you do anything specific to improve the broker experience?
Our completely non-automated, common sense approach to underwriting and policy of not credit scoring is always well received.
As we are smaller we have no call centres and provide our direct dial numbers and email addresses for contact, with short lines of communication. Borrowers and intermediaries are allocated an individual case handler for each application and really benefit from being able to build a relationship with the person processing their application.
FR: Have you got any big plans or exciting news coming up for H&R you can tell us about?
We are expecting big things from 2015 and have allocated plenty of resource to the intermediary sales and relations team – you can expect to see us out and about a lot more.
FR: What advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?
To expect constant change, be open to new ideas and innovation and take any opportunities to network – communication and strong relationships are the key to success.
FR: If you weren’t in financial services, what would you be doing?
My degree was in French and Spanish so I imagine I’d be a high school teacher. I’m glad I’m not though! I love what I do.
