As an employer HBOS has been good to Nick Robinson. Well, it certainly did not lock him in the freezer on his first day, as happened in one of his summer jobs at a shellfish farm in Brighton. Having survived that and other ordeals, Robinson now occupies the managing director’s seat at Intelligent Finance (IF), having previously served as the head of retail savings for HBOS.
Although Robinson may only be in his mid-thirties, he has a wealth of experience from both the academic and business worlds. His initial passion for engineering led to under and post-graduate qualifications from Cambridge, while in later years he furthered his studies at Harvard Business School.
Before his time at Harvard, Robinson got a taste for the world of consulting and worked for two companies on projects in Canada, Saudi Arabia, the US and the UK. Following on from business school, he took consulting up again with Mckinsey and Company. While he admits he never saw himself as a career consultant, the job afforded him travel opportunities and a window into many financial organisations across the globe. Indeed, while the travel was to prove exhausting, it compensated him with a blossoming Air Mile balance.
It was not until three years ago that Robinson decided to make the jump from consulting and take up the position at HBOS. It was not a move he took lightly, as he explains: “The thing that worried me most was getting jammed up in bureaucracy. It was always the thing that I was nervous of when I lifted my head up above the consulting parapet and looked about.”
He continues: “It was hard to find the right company. Many of the clients I had worked for had offered me jobs that were financially attractive, but I could just see myself getting completely stuck and never being able to make anything change. I had never done consultancy work for HBOS as I had other clients that meant it would have been conflicting, but other colleagues had. A former colleague who used to work at HBOS raved about it and he was quite a cynical person, so it made me really think.”
Grasping opportunities
When the opportunity arose Robinson felt the organisation was progressive and the type of meritocracy in which he would like to work. He says: “It felt as though being a little younger would not count against you, and it was definitely a company that was doing things a little bit differently.” He took the position with HBOS and two years later he was with IF.
In spite of his approval of the culture at HBOS, Robinson is keenly aware that IF is simply a division of the bank. However, he is insistent that it must and will keep its autonomy. While he says it is not a struggle to make sure this happens, discussions are ongoing about how much influence the parent should have. He explains: “If you want to keep an identity around a business and you want people in that business to think differently, behave differently, be seen differently and even attract different people, then you have to keep them to a large extent independent. We are part of the biggest mortgage lending group in the UK and one of the biggest banks in Europe so we want to take advantage of that, but if you are going to succeed you also have to be able to act small. I am happy with the amount of autonomy that we have from the group, and the discussion is ongoing as to how we take advantage of the scale open to us.”
For IF, one of the real strengths of belonging to HBOS is that it can target its market with great precision, and does not have to try to tailor an offering that fits across the financial sector. Robinson explains: “There is a simple map of the market and along one axis you have level of access and along the other you have confidence. You find that offset borrowers live in the top right of that world, with a high level of interest and pretty high confidence. Because IF is a separate brand we have been able to target our marketing straight onto that market and we are laser-guiding our products onto that group of clients. Most people we compete against have to compete in the whole space so their branding and ability to customise the way in which they design their proposition has to be broader. It gives us a huge opportunity.”
Offering products to this tailored sector also engenders a real belief in the benefit that IF can bring to its clients, according to Robinson. He says: “The beauty of offset is that it genuinely adds value. If you have lumpy cash flows or you are a higher taxpayer you are going to benefit from offset. If you have big savings, or you want to be able to take payment holidays or get access to cash reserves, this is a fantastic product.” Having this sort of enthusiasm for the products being sold can only help the IF team build on its already impressive sales.
Looking for answers
IF is one of the younger players in the market. It came into existence in November 2000, had achieved 8% of the UK net mortgage market in 2002 and hit its target to break even in 2003. Robinson believes such a strong performance has been partly due to luck, and partly because IF was able to crystallise a need in the market. Having established itself, Robinson is now focusing on pushing the brand forward. He does not claim to have all of the answers, nor is he letting on if he does, but says huge amounts of work are going on behind the scenes. Mortgages make the lion’s share of IF’s operation, and around two thirds are introduced. The adviser channel is imperative for Robinson and he is keen to see it developed.
He says: “Mortgage intermediaries are a big part of our distribution. Our core product is the offset mortgage and that is a complicated product. A mortgage is a high involvement purchase for any consumer, and an offset mortgage is particularly so as it is more complicated with more to understand. Having a skilled sales force is absolutely critical.”
He continues: “In all cases, we want to try and differentiate ourselves. If there is anyone that is going to be discerning of good and bad service it is the people that speak to us and our competitors. We certainly cannot deliver poor service to intermediaries. One of the challenges is how we stand out on this and deliver higher service standards. What do we need to promise in terms of turnaround times? I would be lying if I said I could tell you specifics and say: ‘Here are five of the things we are doing’, but it is definitely something we are working on.”
Exactly what IF will deliver under Robinson remains to be seen, but there can be no doubting his past experience, and as long as he remains out of the freezer, the Edinburgh-based lender should continue to make its presence felt in the UK mortgage market.
Edward Murray is a freelance journalist.
