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Lenders do battle over service to win broker support

by: Samantha Partington
  • 14/01/2015
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As criteria and underwriting requirements become more complex post-Mortgage Market Review, lenders are ramping up field and phone-based support to guide brokers through their processes.

BM Solutions and NatWest have both bolstered BDM teams to enhance their intermediary service propositions.

BM has restructured its BDM operation to give all brokers two points of contact by aligning its telephone and field teams following intermediary feedback.

The change means the field team will be able to spend more time helping brokers understand underwriting needs and carry out workshops on issues such as spotting buy-to-let fraud. The telephone team will be on hand if field BDMs are unavailable.

NatWest has expanded its phone-based team with three new CeMAP-qualified BDMs stemming from advisory backgrounds in Halifax, NatWest and Norwich & Peterborough.

Competition among lenders on the product rate front has been rumbling on for many months as lenders undercut each other to grab more market share leaving rates almost as low as they can go.

While some smaller lenders have looked towards niche and underserved markets to increase lending volumes, like Leeds Building Society and Precise Mortgages, the larger lenders are looking to the quality and speed of broker service to compete for business.

Mark Bullard, head of sales, NatWest Intermediary Solutions, said: “We know from the feedback we get from brokers just how much they value a good BDM. This further bolstering of our BDM support underlines our commitment to the intermediary market; in fact we have increased the number of BDMs we employ by 30% in the last 12 months.”

Mortgage Solutions revealed details of Halifax’s streamlined mortgage processing and underwriting proposition which it is rolling out in stages across the UK following a pilot in Scotland and the North East. Instead of splitting up the mortgage process into individual components, it is giving one person ownership of a case from start to finish to cut down its turnaround times from application to completion.

Following the staged roll out in November, Ian Wilson, head of Halifax Intermediaries, said: “After piloting and refining the proposition for a number of months we have seen significant reductions in the number of times an intermediary has to contact us, quicker valuation turnaround and, importantly for customers, a significant reduction in offer turnaround times from an already strong position.”

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