Speaking to some 620 attendees, the largest gathering to attend the lunch to date, CML chairman Peter Hill said the body had worked constructively in reaction to the Financial Services Trade Association Review, which proposed its merger with the British Bankers’ Association and Payments UK.
“I was delighted that the board was able to respond to the review’s proposals for trade body integration with a clear recommendation to CML members to vote to support a merger. The membership duly did, with a 75% majority”, said Hill.
“But the recommendation – and the resulting vote – are quite clear that the merger is contingent on the final design meeting a very precise set of criteria,” he added.
These criteria, he said, include ensuring that the Mortgage Council will have sufficient powers and headroom to represent the mortgage lending community as effectively as the CML and guaranteeing that it will be able to “develop and deliver member services, including services for associates, as effectively, and to run them as efficiently, as the CML currently does.”
He said the CML has also requested that the council be appropriately represented on the governing body of the new organisation.
“These are just three of the requirements which must be met for the CML to participate in the trade association merger”, said Hill, chief executive of Leeds Building Society.
“We also set out a very clear picture of what we would expect the mortgage body to look like, under 10 headings. Having received a mandate from the membership, we have now embarked on the hard work in making sure the delivery lives up to expectations”.
He said it would take a “heart of stone” not to succumb to nostalgia over what may be the last year of the CML, but that he didn’t expect the trade body representation to be materially different in 2017.
Pointing to the future, Hill said the CML is expanding its research programme, and developing a further vision for data services.
He said it is ‘working closely with the FCA on the review of competition in the mortgage sector and post-MMR thematic reviews, and with the Bank of England on the long-term prudential framework for lending’.
