Lenders heard a call to arms for trade body UK Finance, in particular to ‘bang the drum’ for a more joined up legal process for mortgage borrowers aided by digital panel management, at the UK Finance annual mortgage conference today.
In its first ever mortgage conference, the new ‘super’ trade body formed of six merged trade bodies including the Council of Mortgage Lenders, was challenged to fight for a more customer-centric conveyancing process alongside its lender membership.
During the innovation session and a question on easing a difficult conveyancing process, Greg Went the interim head of secured lending at HSBC said the homebuying process consultation was an opportunity to ‘hold solicitors to account.’
“Where we can see it, it’s for us to use collective panel management to hold solicitors to account and inform the fact that consumer outcomes are important to us as an industry. It feels as if there is an opportunity because it hasn’t changed in a long time, to call out UK Finance to start to bang the drum for better outcomes,” said Went.
Lender HSBC is working with its legal partners to understand how it can incentivise and reward better customer journeys, said Went.
Another panelist, Matt Lowndes, managing director, Coreco said he had been visited by several conveyancing companies promising case tracking and digitised panel management and added, “that will be upon us soon.”
Victoria Hartley is contributing editor at Mortgage Solutions, Specialist Lending Solutions, Your Money and Your Mortgage at London-based publishing company AE3 Media.
She has an MA in Radio from Goldsmiths after gaining a 2:1 in a Comparative American Studies BA at Warwick University. She also holds a TEFL qualification and taught overseas in Mexico and Japan from 1994 to 1997.
Her role includes editorial oversight of the news, analysis and features, event content management and strategic and editorial consultancy for the AE3 Media group. She is an experienced video, broadcast and live-event host and regularly chairs web and podcast debates and interviews.
Multiple award nominations have resulted in two wins: Santander Media Awards, trade journalist of the year and Headlinemoney Awards, mortgage journalist of the year (B2B). Here is one of the award-winning pieces: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/exclusive-tale-bailey-fraud-witness/
Previous roles include editorships of Mortgage Solutions, consumer title What Mortgage and trade title Credit Today as well as a stint freelancing for a variety of outlets including The Guardian and Which? Money.
