What kind of products and services is Norton Finance offering the Intermediary?
In 2010 Norton Finance launched the “One Stop Shop” through Norton Broker Services and this offers a wide range of financial products and services including Secured Loans, All types of Mortgages, Debt Solutions including IVA’s, Commercial Loans and Bridging Finance.
Other Products and Services are also available. The benefit of the “One Stop Shop” to the Intermediary, only one contact is needed to provide a solution to almost every client enquiry resulting in time being saved, higher conversion rates being achieved and greater commissions generated.
What trends are you seeing in the Secured Loan marketplace?
May 2009 was a turning point for us and since then there has been a steady increase in our monthly Secured Loan completions. 2011 results to date our very encouraging and in March 2011 we achieved our best month since the “credit crunch” in 2007.
This success can be put down to a number of factors:
- A Secured Loan Lender panel that offers a Range of Prime and Adverse Borrower Products
- We lend our money through our own Secured Loan Lender, Norton Financial Services which has a compliant but flexible approach to lending
- A market leading underwriting process that has won us many “championship challenges”
- Speedy Intermediary commission payments paid by BACS within days of a loan completing
Secured Loan monthly completions will continue to increase in 2011 as Borrowers need to retain their existing mortgage on a low standard variable interest rate and yet need to consolidate debt into one manageable payment in order to reduce monthly outgoings
What advice would you offer to Intermediaries who may still be struggling as a result of the economic downturn?
Those Intermediaries who have been in the Industry for a number of years will have clients who are struggling to balance their monthly family budgets. Many of these clients will be using credit cards or store cards to help pay for some monthly expenditure and yet will only pay the minimum payment required under the contract terms.
In the past these clients could obtain an Unsecured Loan from a High Street Bank to consolidate credit card and store card debts but this option in many cases is now no longer available.
This is were the Intermediary can offer a solution to their clients debt problem as a Secured Loan may be a useful alternative and with loan to values up to 85% in many cases it can be a much more attractive, quicker and cheaper proposition than a re-mortgage. So to summarise actively work your clientbank.
What advice would you offer to Intermediaries who may still be struggling as a result of the economic downturn?
Those Intermediaries who have been in the Industry for a number of years will have clients who are struggling to balance their monthly family budgets.
Many of these clients will be using credit cards or store cards to help pay for some monthly expenditure and yet will only pay the minimum payment required under the contract terms.
In the past these clients could obtain an Unsecured Loan from a High Street Bank to consolidate credit card and store card debts but this option in many cases is now no longer available.
This is were the Intermediary can offer a solution to their clients debt problem as a Secured Loan may be a useful alternative and with loan to values up to 85% in many cases it can be a much more attractive, quicker and cheaper proposition than a re-mortgage. So to summarise actively work your clientbank.
What do you feel is Norton Finance’s biggest achievement to date?
The Company has been in business for almost 38 years and during that time it has seen several economic downturns but non like the “credit crunch” in 2007.
In 2007 it very quickly reduced its management costs and diversified into other Products and Services but still maintained a major presence in the Secured Loan Marketplace.
Although staffing numbers were significantly reduced it was able to retain many of its long serving experienced staff who are now contributing to the excellent business results now being achieved.
The Company is still a major employer in South Yorkshire with a current headcount of 240 and it continues to maintain a significant presence in the Specialist Finance Market.
With the Company being FSA registered it looks forward to the many changes that will occur in the 2012/2013 as it believes it will be well placed to take advantage of the business opportunities it will present.
