The initial range includes an interest roll-up product and a roll-up voluntary payment option, which allows the customer to repay 10% of the initial loan each year, without incurring an Early Repayment Charge.
The interest roll-up product is being launched with fixed interest rates from 4.98% and variable interest rates from 2.96%, while the roll-up voluntary payment option will attract fixed interest rates from 5.45% or variable interest rates from 3.44%.
Georgina Smith (pictured), managing director of OneFamily Lifetime Mortgages, said: “We wanted to introduce new and innovative features into the lifetime mortgage market, including the option of a variable interest rate.
“We have done this to extend consumer choice and to help grow the market. These products will complement OneFamily’s vision to enable families to work together to meet the financial demands of modern life.”
In the coming months, OneFamily will also go live with a fixed and variable rate product linked to the Consumer Price Index.
The product is initially available through specialist equity release advisers but the lender is keen to attract mainstream mortgage advisers and IFAs saying its interest rates should open the door.
Smith said hurdles stopping mainstream advisers engaging with the equity release market like technology, lengthier advice periods and the extra permission should all be easy to overcome. The lender is keen to double its distribution of roughly 1,500 advisers and with ex-Hodge Lifetime sales director Jon Tweed, now One Family sales director, the firm has big broker outreach plans.
“We want to make this a product for mortgage advisers,” she said.
“IFAs should also be looking at this product after the pension reforms because given the fact a property is often worth four times your pension pot no adviser should be dealing with pensions and property as separate issues.”
OneFamily Lifetime Mortgages operates as a separate business unit, led by Smith, under the OneFamily Group, the result of the merger between Family Investments and Engage Mutual. Before joining the group, Smith was both chief executive and marketing director at Stonehaven.
