Presenter (played by me): The secured loan industry is showing genuine signs of recovering from the credit crunch, lenders are returning to the market and criteria is improving, those that survived are stronger than ever, so what would three of the secured loan industry's main parties have to say?
Nemo: We are leading the market offering our brokers LTVs up to 80% and we'll accept on-line valuations?
Prestige: That is very true but you lend only to status clients. We live in a world where people are not perfect and payments are missed from time to time; we lend to customers who have CCJ's, defaults and even mortgage arrears, in fact we'll lend up to 60% LTV to a customer with 4 months mortgage arrears!
Norton: You both make very good points but secured loans should be simple and Norton offer the simplest process within the industry. We will lend up to 60% LTV without the need for a valuation, simple comparables of the area will allow your customers loan to sail through with us.
Presenter: What about self-employed customers?
Norton: We have noticed that the current level of unemployment has forced many people to start working for themselves. We have adapted our lending criteria and will lend to self-employed customers with no minimum term self-employed, all we ask is they complete our Declaration of Affordability Form, backed up with recent months' bank statements showing the income they are earning.
Prestige: We cater for the self-employed better than any other lender, we don't differentiate our rates or plans for employed or self employed. Self-employed applicants can supply a simple self declaration letter and we will lend.
Nemo: Whilst I can see the benefits of what you are saying, we may not lend to the self-employed but our rates for employed customers are the best in the industry with loans of up to 100,000 from rates as low as 9.9% APR.
An arm is raised in the audience: "Whilst I cannot argue your rates are the best, Link Loans and others are catching you up with rates from just 11.9% APR and Blemain Finance offer loans to the self-employed up to 75% LTV."
Presenter: Ladies & gentlemen, thank you all for your comments. It's great to see competition coming back to the secured loan industry and with 13 (yes, thirteen) lenders now available through Loans Warehouse, not just the above but Central Lender, Blemain, Blackhorse, this list goes on. No one can argue against there being definite signs of recovery.
A full list of lenders and their criteria can be found at loanswarehouse.co.uk/broker
Thank you for reading.
