Adams understands the intermediary market and what it means to form solid relationships with brokers. He has held positions in underwriting and business development with Cheltenham and Gloucester and GMAC-RFC before climbing the ranks to become head of sales for one of the UK’s biggest lenders.
Santander is putting the work in to maintain and grow its relationship with intermediaries, which undoubtedly play a pivotal role in the success of its mortgage business.
One of the biggest boosts to intermediary lending levels at Santander comes from its buy-to-let business, despite its departure from the market in 2008 during the financial crisis.
Adams believes the bank’s position in the buy-to-let market is gaining further traction as brokers feel more comfortable dealing with firms outside of the two reigning lenders.
“There are two areas we want to grow this year; buy to let and new build,” says Adams. “We’re started to be seen as one of the dominant players in the buy-to-let market and I think we’re beginning to position ourselves as one of the top three lenders in that sector, alongside BM Solutions and The Mortgage Works.”
Biggest challenges
Much like the overall market itself, around 70% of Santander’s mortgage business comes via intermediaries. This is why the lender’s business development team is such an integral part of the business strategy and 2016 will see 25 years’ of its BDM team on the road.
However, developing a strong support network hasn’t been without its challenges, Adams says. When Adams joined Santander six years ago, there was a great deal of focus on establishing the brand at a local level, and at the height of this, the bank dealt with intermediary business across a staggering 18 BDM sites in the UK.
“We took a decision to scale back and shut a number of regional offices to create a more integrated sales force, but this understandably created change and unsettlement among intermediary partners,” Adams explains.
“It’s during events like these that you realise how crucial personal relationships in the industry are to brokers. We still have a very strong BDM team which is the face of Santander to many brokers.”
While at the time this was a blow for Santander’s intermediary partners, Adams believes the broker community has the ability to stand its ground during tough times.
“The intermediary market is very adaptable and mortgage advisers are astute business people,” he says. “The size of the intermediary market has ebbed and flowed in recent years, particularly due to the credit crunch, but dynamism in the sector has got it to the size it is today.”
The Mortgage Credit Directive
A major talking point in the industry over recent months has undoubtedly been the Mortgage Credit Directive. Most recently, consumer buy-to-let and foreign currency mortgages have been the hottest topics, with a spate of lenders choosing to exit the foreign currency market ahead of the directive’s deadline on 21 March 2016.
“We will be continuing to support borrowers who earn in a foreign currency,” Adams says. “We have been collecting market intelligence on the customers that borrow from us and this has impacted our decision to stay within that sector. The impact of lenders withdrawing from the market will mean less lenders for borrowers to choose from, which can’t be good for customers. We want to help as many as possible.”
Another customer segment that has caught the attention of the industry and the regulator of late is older borrowers. In May this year Mortgage Solutions revealed that Santander was poised to launch a product to support its existing back book customers struggling to pay off their interest-only mortgage.
Adams says: “We’re currently working on a back book strategy for older borrowers for which we’re in the middle of talking to providers, so it’s likely that we’ll see the launch of that halfway through 2016.”
Talking with Adams it’s clear that there is one underlying theme running through our conversation and the bank’s overall ethos.
“The key theme that my collective teams and I focus on and strive to excel at every day is service,” Adams adds.
“I can’t stress it enough, service is absolutely fundamental. This year we have really focused on this and implemented a lot of new tools that have improved service and I’m pleased to say that at this moment, our time to offer is 9.6 days, which is strong in the market space and we want to keep it at that.”
Paul Adams – a brief biography and quick-fire question round
After leaving college, Adams was a fitness instructor at a local leisure centre. However, when he met his wife who was a financial adviser at the time, he was coached into the world of mortgages.
Adams started at Cheltenham and Gloucester as a mortgage underwriter but quickly moved to become an intermediary development manager working out of the flagship branch in Gloucester. He spent a number of years at GMAC-RFC managing a field based business development manager (BDM) team in the South West and also managed a couple of the marketing teams based in Bracknell before moving to Santander six years ago.
Throughout his career at Santander, Adams managed the South West BDM team, then moved to head up the whole of the lender’s field business development teams. Last year following an internal promotion he took Santander’s telephone BDM and other specialist telephone support teams on as his responsibility and now heads up the lender’s full intermediary distribution team.
- Proudest career moment? My promotion into the role I have now is the stand-out moment for me so far. I have a great team of people who bring passion to what they do every single day and care deeply about the relationships we have with intermediaries and the service we provide.
- Biggest challenge ahead? My daughter is taking her GCSEs this year and my son takes his next year, so personally, supporting my kids through this challenging time with their exams at such a pivotal point in their lives is really important for me.
Professionally, I think as an industry we need to work on making the house buying process quicker and simpler. Technology is playing an increasingly big role in everyone’s lives. How we can better harness it to support intermediaries and their customers is a challenge that is facing everyone in this space. - If you were Prime Minister for the day, what would be your first policy change?I have two kids who are growing up so quickly, already they’re heading into their mid-teens. I sometimes wish I spent more time with them, which is why, as Prime Minister I’d introduce a three-day weekend and spend at least one day each weekend with my kids.
- What’s the best present you’ve ever given? A few years ago I bought my wife an olive tree in Italy and hired her a row of grapes in a vineyard in France (the latter one to help her cope with me). We travelled out to visit them both around harvest time which was great!
