The Retrofit Explorer tool offers an accurate, transparent view of the upfront cost and returns of retrofitting a home. It also recommends cost-effective methods for energy upgrades. 

This will be integrated into the Octopus Real Estate website to encourage retrofitting and bolster green residential lending. 

It will work in conjunction with Octopus Real Estate’s green product offering, which comprises refurbishment loans to fund up to £200,000 of works. Where a property’s EPC rating has been improved following works, borrowers will benefit from a 1.8% per year discount on the interest rate. 

Octopus Real Estate said that, when it came to making homes more efficient, borrowers were faced with the challenges of not understanding the costs, the return on investment and being unaware of what works to undertake. 

The lender said this partnership was a “no brainer” as it would help to decarbonise housing in the UK. 

Joe Webb, chief growth officer of Kamma, said: “Retrofitting offers benefits on many levels, reducing emissions, saving on energy bills and even adding to asset value. It further reduces transition risk, supports transition planning and limits financed emissions for lenders.

“In this context, the lack of actual activity in the market has been surprising. We aim, for the first time, to make these benefits clear to consumers and lenders alike, driving up retrofit activity and driving down emissions and energy bills.” 

Steve Matthews (pictured), head of residential lending at Octopus Real Estate, said: “We want to offer genuine incentives to customers seeking to borrow to improve their property investments. We’re delighted to partner with Kamma, who clearly illustrate the benefits from making positive changes.

“Together, we’re aiming to drive genuine change and improve the availability of quality, sustainable homes.” 

Last month, Octopus Real Estate revealed it had completed over £35m in green homes lending through the Greener Homes Alliance initiative. The scheme is in partnership with Homes England and offers discounted rates to developers to encourage energy-efficient projects.

The platform will be implemented across all of Together’s core products, including regulated residential and buy-to-let (BTL) mortgages, commercial loans, bridging loans and development finance. 

Through the use of Ncino’s Cloud Banking Platform, Together will be able to scale and digitise its operations as well as react quickly to changing economic conditions, interest rate changes and market expectations. 

Andrea Dalton, chief transformation officer at Together, said: “We’ve been helping people achieve their property ambitions for fifty years, and with Ncino’s support, we will continue to deliver on that mission with added efficiency, speed and agility. 

“We currently originate over £200m in loans every month and, with Ncino, we’re excited to scale and become more efficient through digital consolidation, enhanced risk management and a more modern customer experience.” 

Charlie McIver, managing director of EMEA at Ncino, added: “We’re excited to partner with Together on this transformation programme. 

“Working with our proven technology and system implementation partners, we look forward to delivering a strategic digital lending platform across all of Together’s core products that will help the lender grow and best meet the needs of its colleagues and customers.”

The Ncino platform covers the mortgage origination lifecycle from application to completion. It can be developed to react to market changes faster and remove the need for manual processes. 

Speaking to this publication in February, Ryan Etchells, chief commercial officer at Together, said the lender was still primed for growth. 

Celebrating its 50th year of business in 2024, this followed the announcement that the lender’s loan book rose to £6.8bn in the first quarter of this year. 

Earlier this week, Together priced its £378m first charge-only residential mortgage-backed securitisation, which was the second transaction of this kind this year. 

Also, since the office was established in June last year, the team has doubled in size. This has resulted in a move to larger premises. 

Simply Asset Finance’s Liverpool office has worked with more than 50 brokerages to help clients in the North West secure financial solutions, helping more than 800 clients. 

The lender said its Liverpool team showed how its growing national presence supported its growing lending pipeline and its regional broker partners. 

John Wiles, managing director of Simply Asset Finance’s Liverpool office, said: “Our Liverpool office’s phenomenal growth is a testament to the talented team and our commitment to building our regional footprint to support even more SMEs [to] grow and thrive. 

“As we continue to expand our national presence, we are as committed as ever to recruit and train the next generation of industry talent in the North West. They will support us on our mission to deliver tailored support and service to both our customers and broker partners.” 

Simply Asset Finance launched in 2017 and offers alternative finance solutions. 

It has lent more than £1bn to more than 6,800 small and medium-sized businesses since it was established. 

In its half-year results for 2023, it reported a pre-tax profit of £3.2m and £152m in funding to UK businesses.

Rates now start from 5.74%, following cuts to LendInvest’s tracker and fixed product pricing. 

It has also added fee-free products to its offering, which it said would help homeowner borrowers with the upfront costs of their mortgage. 

LendInvest said this was the start of an “evolving proposition”, which was influenced by feedback and input from its broker partners to better serve the needs of borrowers. 

Earlier this year, the lender set up a programme with its broker partners where it agreed to hold regular reviews to gain feedback on its offering, as well as give them access to exclusive benefits. 

LendInvest’s residential mortgage range includes bespoke support and specialist options for people with multiple sources of income, those who are self-employed, key workers and borrowers with complex credit histories. 

Paula Mercer (pictured), head of sales at LendInvest, said: “These changes mark our next step in support of brokers and their customers who may be traditionally harder to place with a lender.

“In the year since we launched residential mortgage products, we’ve seen lots of appetite and learned a lot from our brokers’ feedback, so we can keep building a product range that meets the needs of borrowers who are underserved by the mainstream mortgage lenders.” 

Last week, LendInvest said its financial performance turned around in the second half of its reporting period. 

It said there was a rise in loan searches, decision in principle (DIP) requests, and the use of its platform. 

Loan searches over Q1 were 50% up on the whole of last year, totalling 2,966 queries. 

Some 1,084 loan searches were also conducted within 31 days in March, which was a new high for the platform. 

There were also 784 DIP requests submitted by more than 190 broker firms, which was another record high. 

During Q1, the platform also saw its fastest DIP to date, with a decision returned in seven minutes. 

Additionally, Brickflow expanded its lender panel by a tenth with the addition of 11 lenders and obtained its first exclusive rate for bridging finance with Hana Capital. 

Ian Humphreys (pictured), CEO and founder of Brickflow, said this was driven by a change in market behaviour.

Humphreys said: “The commercial real estate market is evolving, and intermediaries, borrowers and even lenders are now realising that utilising technology to secure deals is key to staying competitive.

“Both adoption and usage are increasing as the market moves away from the archaic manual process for securing funding to a new default behaviour, leveraging Brickflow to facilitate increased efficiency, connectivity and communication.” 

Largest loan completion to date 

Brickflow also completed its largest ever loan during the period. 

This was a development finance deal worth £16.85m, completed by Purple Pepper Homes for a development of 103 flats in Hastings. The developer used Brickflow to apply for the loan with their intermediary. 

The deal took a few days to complete, which Pierre Lombaard, managing director of Brickflow, said was quicker than the usual weeks it took to process an application. 

He said: “The funding requirement was a complex one, and it’s unlikely we would have been successful had we approached funders directly. We saved weeks of time by comparing lending options on the Brickflow platform, and we were able to structure our development funding with our exit strategy of partial long-term retention in mind.

“This and the ability to create a comprehensive online project appraisal gave the funders more confidence in our scheme and its ultimate success.” 

Humphreys added: “Whilst we have had bigger loans agreed on the platform, this is the biggest loan that has successfully completed, demonstrating that even higher-calibre developers struggle to find the best finance options in an opaque market.

“Our technology was instrumental in getting this scheme successfully funded.” 

The lender launched its asset finance division in January 2021, and it said the number of loans issued in the last 12 months was nearly double the number Allica Bank lent in the previous two years combined. 

Allica Bank said it was receiving an average of more than 750 applications for asset finance every month, attributing the rise to its ability to provide fast decisions to brokers. 

The lender said it also saw growth due to the expansion of its product suite to include soft and medium assets. It said it had received nearly £50m in applications for this proposition. 

Brandon Hall, head of asset finance sales at Allica Bank, said: “Allica has built a reputation among brokers for fast and consistent decision-making, supported by top-class customer service. You can see this in our broker satisfaction surveys, in which 89% rate our service as good or excellent.” 

This follows the lender’s announcement that it lent more than £2bn in commercial mortgages last year. 

Earlier this week, Allica Bank – which launched in 2020 – released its full-year results for 2023, which showed it delivered its first annual profit of £16.1m. It also saw its new organic lending reach £729.1m, up from the previous year’s total of £565.9m. 

Finova has offered the lending platforms for two of OSB Group’s market lending brands, Kent Reliance and Precise Mortgages, since 2010.

The renewal of the contract means that the platform will continue to support the group with its “multi-brand sales model”.

The two companies will also “explore a range of new cloud technologies and a shift to cloud-based infrastructure”.

Chris Little, chief revenue officer at Finova, commented: “We are delighted to continue supporting OSB Group in the coming years and are keen to help as it pushes forward to use cutting-edge technologies in the years to come.”

Jon Hall, group managing director of mortgages and savings at OSB Group, added: “Our lending brands, Kent Reliance and Precise Mortgages, have grown successfully over the years using Finova’s technology, and we look forward to maintaining our partnership with Finova through this renewal.”

OSB Group’s organic originations reached £4.7bn in 2023, which is down from £5.8bn in the prior year.

The Tab Series loan is for borrowers who need funding at different stages, starting with an initial bridging loan for asset purchase. It also includes a refurbishment loan, if this is needed, then transitions into a long-term commercial mortgage. 

The maximum loan size is £7.5m. Tab said it gave borrowers the ability to work with a single lender and benefit from savings of 2.75% on fees, as well as reduced costs of legal expenses and valuations. 

Other product changes at Tab 

The lender said it was also making the move to use open market values (OMVs) for valuation, which would “benefit both borrowers and brokers”. 

This will apply to loans of up to £2.5m and is a change from the lender’s previous use of 180-day valuations. 

Additionally, Tab has reduced rates in its residential bridging term loan to 4.99% per annum over base. 

Duncan Kreeger (pictured), CEO and founder of Tab, said: “I am happy to introduce Tab Series to the market, our latest innovation designed to meet the needs of borrowers grappling with a changing interest rate environment.

“Meticulously crafted by our team, this tailored solution addresses a significant gap in the market, promising seamless support for borrowers at every stage of their property journey.”

He added: “Prioritising their needs from acquisition to management to disposal, coupled with the other changes we have announced today, empowers borrowers to capitalise on opportunities that may not have otherwise been affordable.” 

Last year, Tab completed a private securitisation facility with Natwest and Atalaya Capital Management for £300m. It said this investment would go towards supporting its lending capacity. 

The venture will be headed up by UTB’s Julian Mellors (pictured) and was soft launched in October 2023.

The company said that it has several live facilities with small and medium-sized independent asset finance companies and is in various “stages of negotiation” with more partners.

The lender said it was targeting relationships with asset finance companies funding lease, hire purchase and loan contracts, and aims to pay out facility drawdowns on a same-day service.

Julian Mellors, head of block discounting at UTB, said: “Block discounting is a very good funding method for small and medium-sized non-bank finance companies. UTB has been considering entering this sector since last year as part of its product and market diversification strategy, and I was delighted to be selected to lead the creation of this new venture for the bank.

“We have designed our launch offering, which we will develop further over time, to cover most of the requirements of larger and small commercial asset finance lenders.”

Earlier this month, UTB expanded its residential and buy-to-let (BTL) range to include new-build properties.

Prior to working at HREF, Shokin was most recently a director at Most Loans for nearly six years, and before that, he was director of sales at Century Capital for around two years.

He has also worked at Oracle Wellbeck Partners, Claremont Asset Management, and Mint Partners, part of BGC Brokers.

Davenport-Jenkins has worked at the firm for around a year, initially joining as an associate. Prior to that, he worked as an associate for origination at Arrow Global Group for around three years, and before that, he was an analyst associate at Morgan Stanley for three years.

Brad Altberger, CEO and co-founder of HREF, commented: “We are seeing increasing demand for our services, as the traditional banking sector is failing to meet the lending requirements of a significant segment of the market. We are a client-focused organisation, and the addition of Alexey and promotion of Patrick strengthens our ability to meet the demands of our clients.”

Shokin added: “I am really pleased to join HREF. I have worked with the team since they entered the market last year, and I have been hugely impressed with their ability to deliver lending solutions for their clients in a commercial and expeditious manner.”

Davenport-Jenkins said: “When I joined HREF last year, I saw that it was a fantastic opportunity to help develop what I believe will become one of the leading real estate lending businesses in the UK. I’m excited to be stepping up by originating my own loans and taking on more responsibility in underwriting and executing transactions.”

HREF recently became a patron lender of the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB), so it will be able to network with its commercial finance community, which includes over 2,500 brokers from over 1,100 member firms.