Protection network Paymentshield has announced its intention to set up its own mortgage network, following feedback from its recent roadshows.
Graham Boulger, group sales director at Paymentshield, said: ‘Given that we currently supply 16,500 agents with general insurance products and over 3,500 with pure protection insurance, it is our intention to act as a principal for these products under forthcoming FSA regulation. Extending our activities to cover mortgages allows us to provide compliance for all products surrounding the mortgage event therefore giving economies of scale.’
Paymentshield is promising brokers access to a wide range of lenders, payment of high procuration fees and a number other services and facilities free of charge. However, it will still maintain its insurance offering for those who remain directly regulated.
It estimates up to 7,000 brokers will opt to join the network when it launches on 1 September this year, although Boulger warns brokers not to rush in: ‘We still have not seen the final rules for mortgage regulation and we are still in the consultative process for general insurance and pure protection products. I suggest that intermediaries wait to make a decision until the rules are announced, he said.’
Richard Griffiths, managing director of Network Data, said: ‘I estimate that only around 7,000 brokers will want to become appointed representatives, so if its prediction is true it will leave the rest of us with nothing. Paymentshield is well known for providing protection products, but there is a question mark over whether it will have credibility as a mortgage network. I would say that brokers should not listen to hyperbole, they should look at the real detail.’
