The final Mortgage Market Review rules come into force on 26 April 2014 but lenders have so far kept strategy under wraps.
Reynolds said that he was relaxed about the upcoming changes and that it was better for the market if lenders could make a full announcement rather than releasing information in stages.
“A lot of lenders are still working through what they are going to do. If they tell us what is happening in a piecemeal way there’s always the chance things could change later on.
“I’m quite relaxed, they don’t need to tell us what’s happening with branches and there are big decisions to be made by lenders.”
With the implementation date now a little over eight months away, Reynolds said that lenders would likely be waiting for discussions on the Help to Buy scheme to conclude before making changes to their systems.
“Lenders are working on MMR now and may well be waiting until the final rules of the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme are finalised so they can make all the changes at once,” he said.
“Technology time is precious, especially at the bigger lenders.”
Further focus will be put on making sure that brokers understand the lenders’ criteria and that cases are a suitable fit.
“Advisers need to make sure they only submit cases when they match the lenders’ criteria. But for this we will need to know what the processes are and what the criteria is.
“For things like documentation, brokers need to make sure they have the right pieces at the right time, if the lender requires a P60 but the borrower can’t provide it for a few weeks then that’s not the right lender for the case.
