This requires a degree of flexibility that wasn’t in my job description, added to which time seems to be going faster than this time last year, I can’t believe a week has gone by already.
As many of you will know starting a new business is frustrating but comes with an enormous sense of achievement each time even small milestones are reached.
These range from installing a new mortgage ‘end to end’ system in record time (huge cost, very complex, massive downside if milestones not met) to solving hugely important dilemmas such as, where shall we put the fridge? Again, very important but not quite so critical. Then there’s also the ‘small’ matter of discussing products that are likely to sell in their ‘multi-millions’ (the lifeblood of a new business) to talking about stationery.
We welcomed another new member of staff this week, one of the most experienced underwriters I’ve worked with and former manager of an underwriting team so an absolute result for the business. The enthusiasm from all staff is infectious with no job too small or too large if it gets us over the line – I wish I could bottle the energy here, I’d make a fortune.
Highlights of the week (new staff aside which is always a highlight) were the first view of the Fleet Mortgages ‘branded’ Mortgage Processing System which gives our operational team testing the system a real feel for how things will operate when we start to lend.
The website is now ‘signed off’ which means it’s ready to go but we need to put in the content, not easy when we’re still working on the detail of the products but I’m sure someone in marketing will think of something. We’ve produced initial drafts of the products and they look good, finally we’ve moved from what our products might be like to seeing them but we’re holding off releasing details until we’re closer to launch in November, particularly given the recent market changes across the spectrum on products.
All in all it’s been another good week with lots of the ‘nitty gritty’ prepared or signed off. These are certainly the hard yards, making sure that everything is ready for launch date which requires a lot of concentration and discussion across various documents to make sure that what we think we mean agrees with what the documentation says we’ll do – it often doesn’t but at least we’re catching these anomalies now rather than further down the line.
(Fleet Mortgages is expected to launch in mid-November)
Bob Young is chief executive officer of Fleet Mortgages
