David Finlay, intermediary managing director at the bank, told the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ annual conference in London that Barclays would look to recoup the costs associated with training sales staff by increasing direct sales.
However, Finlay said the intermediated market would distribute the biggest part of Barclays’ business.
“As a direct lender we’re looking at moving our sales force to an advised proposition. That involves cost and it would be foolish not to believe that we’re going to try and recoup that by sweating the assets we’ve got.
“That’s not to say we wouldn’t continue to work in the broker market, yes we are.
“Will it continue to be the largest percentage of our business? Yes it will, but we’ll be looking to sweat the assets we have.”
Mortgage Solutions reported earlier this week that Barclays had taken the decision to change its interest-only criteria due to an influx of sales, and Finlay admitted that the lender would now be concentrating on existing customers.
“We had to move our interest-only policy and part of the reason was that we’d seen a real increase in the amount of interest-only sales coming our way.
“Now we’re looking very carefully at our interest-only back book and engaging with those customers to see how we can get through this period.”
