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Revealed: UK Finance’s mortgage strategy and first priorities

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  • 24/07/2017
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Revealed: UK Finance’s mortgage strategy and first priorities
Trade body UK Finance has revealed its overarching strategic priorities and how it plans to integrate them within its mortgage industry work.

Speaking exclusively to Mortgage Solutions, UK Finance mortgage product board chairman Peter Hill discussed how the organisation will progress its key strategies and give the industry and consumers a voice.

 

The UK Finance board’s key strategic priorities are:

  • Brexit;
  • Innovation and fintech;
  • Consumer interest and financial inclusion;
  • Diversity;
  • Regions;
  • Ethics;
  • Financial crime.

 

Meanwhile, the mortgage product board (MPB) has carried over the strategic priorities from the previous Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML):

  • Housing policy;
  • The Financial Conduct Authority’s market study;
  • Innovation;
  • Research.

 

Hill, who is also a member of the main board of UK Finance, said his priority was to ensure that the MPB delivered in the same work the CML did.

“So we must speak with our own voice, initiate mortgage policy, and engage with regulators the government and third party stakeholders on behalf of the mortgage industry in exactly the way we did before,” he said.

“At the same time we must make sure the big themes we’re discussing at the UK Finance board level are being brought forward to the mortgage product board to make sure we’re setting the context.

“And also, anything that’s surfacing out of the MPB which has an impact on the cross-cutting themes is being returned to the main board.”

 

Broader remit

Hill is also chief executive of Leeds Building Society and believes that combining the CML into the much larger trade association will allow it to take advantage of a wider range of capabilities to move the sector forward.

“Where we will get real benefit from being part of UK Finance is linking-in to these overarching priorities, so for example around innovation and fintech,” he continued.

“That is an area that was very important to the CML but there is a lot more to be done around the digital agenda.”

The new trade body is also seeking to have a more external consumer-facing approach to its work on these strategic priorities, rather than purely reflecting the industry view.

“These two points are bound together,” Hill said.

“The UK Finance board is not just a board of insiders from the finance industry but has also got external representation from the Money Advice Trust and Blockchain.

“What we have tried to do with this is broaden the remit from a narrow trade association view from within the industry, and then build a perspective on these more wide-ranging points by also having a more outward looking perspective,” he added.

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