"These quality senior and complimentary hires also show that Perenna is serious about building a truly remote fintech bank"
Perenna is currently working through the banking licence process to bring Danish-style 'fixed for life' mortgages to the UK market in summer 2021.
Liz Moore joins as head of underwriting and Simon Thompson has been appointed head of operations.
Liz joins from Atom where she was fundamental in building the lending operations and underwriting functions. Prior to this, she worked in a variety of underwriting, risk management, service delivery and improvement roles across a range of financial services institutions including Barclaycard, Northern Rock and Zurich Insurance.
Simon joins from Virgin Money where he was head of mortgage operations from 2018, managing teams in Newcastle upon Tyne, Glasgow and Leeds and responsible for the full end-to-end mortgage customer journey. Prior to that, Simon was Virgin Money’s chief underwriter for six years. He has also worked in commercial and corporate banking with Northern Rock, Bank of Scotland and Barclays.
Perenna will use long-term covered bonds to finance its products, taking inspiration from the Danish mortgage model. This approach to lending in the UK means that Perenna will be able to issue 30-year fixed-rate mortgages while giving customers the flexibility to port their mortgage should they want to move.
Perenna’s products will be available to borrowers ranging from first-time buyers, who can access 95% LTV products, to those who want to move, remortgage or take out a mortgage in later life.
The lender is now designing and building its systems and processes, and Liz and Simon will start to build their teams to deliver lending later in the year.
Colin Bell, COO & co-founder of Perenna, commented: “We approached Liz and Simon based on our vision to create a customer centric, and technology driven approach to lending as it matched their skills and experience. Once they heard about our strategy towards lending and our bond backed long-term fixed rate mortgage concept they quickly decided they wanted to be part of both building Perenna and bringing it to life at the creative stages.
“These quality senior and complimentary hires also show that Perenna is serious about building a truly remote fintech bank, recruiting the best people, not restricting recruitment by geography, and creating Perenna work pods around the country. Personally, having studied economics in Newcastle upon Tyne, having a Perenna work pod there brought back fond memories of my time living there.”
Liz Moore said: “I’m thrilled to be part of a team so committed to delivering true transformation to the UK mortgage market; ripping up the rule book, fully leveraging data and technology to create lending products that truly work for customers not just now, or for the next couple of years but through their life of homeownership, and all the events that come with it!”
Simon Thompson added: “I am delighted to be joining such a brilliant team. After speaking to Colin and hearing about Perenna’s ambitions to bring such a compelling customer proposition to the mortgage market, it was an easy decision for me to make the move. The ambition of the team to combine a technology-led customer experience, together with an innovative funding model is unique in the UK and I firmly believe Perenna will be well placed to disrupt the market, especially for those customer groups who are currently underserved and will benefit from this refreshing approach.”
