Lenders with criteria on Knowledge Bank can now select the packagers to accept business from and whether it is optional or mandatory for the broker to go through a packager to place business with them. Packagers can do this for each different lending type, so this information will be specific to the search the broker has conducted. For example, if a lender accepts packaged business for buy-to-let, but direct business for first charge residential, then the packager symbol will only appear when the broker conducts a search for buy-to-let.
So, a broker will conduct a criteria search to see which lenders will take their client’s case. If any or all of the lenders revealed in the search require the broker to go through a packager or master broker to submit business this will become immediately apparent.
Nicola Firth, chief executive officer of Knowledge Bank and its parent company Compass Systems, said: “After a broker has searched the criteria on Knowledge Bank to find out which lenders can take their client’s case, it then makes it simple for them to contact the packager or master broker with the case details straight away if the lender prefers this route of case submission.
“Like the whole of Knowledge Bank, the packager section has been designed to make brokers’ lives easier and shorten the amount of time it takes to find the information they need and place a case. In this case it will also make life easier for lenders to showcase both packagers and master brokers.”
Networks will also be able to tailor the system to display only the packagers or master brokers that their Appointed Representatives (ARs) are permitted to use. Networks can also do this with regards to lenders, so ARs of a particular lender only ever see the criteria for the lenders on that network’s panel.
Knowledge Bank now contains over 26,000 criteria across over 70 lenders. This is up from just 18,000 criteria and 48 lenders at launch three months ago with over 17,000 broker searches.
