TSLE2020: Kent Reliance and Vida considering mortgage prisoner solutions

Speaking at The Specialist Lending Event in Birmingham, the lenders agreed that the specialist space was probably best suited to helping the borrowers trapped with closed, inactive or unregulated lenders.

Simon Cockerill, head of sales at Kent Reliance for Intermediaries, said: “I’ve raised it internally, it’s with the credit risk team now to look at how they want to take that forward.”

He added: “I think this is actually an area that specialist lenders will adopt first, I think it’s the thing that’s right in our remit and we should be looking at it.

“I can’t commit to a date but that’s the sort of thing that we would like to see innovation in our sector.”

‘On the agenda’

Cockerill was supported by Karen Rodrigues, corporate sales manager for mortgages at Vida Homeloans, who agreed that the mortgage prisoner issue was “on the agenda” at the lender.

Rodrigues noted that the lender was beginning to look at its historical data and back book to learn from that.

“Everything is on the agenda for 2020 and beyond and one of the things is for mortgage prisoners,” she said.

She added: “The benefit you will see from a specialist lender is we can flex a bit more, we don’t have the legacy systems that some of the competition have on the high street and you will see that come through.”

Octane Capital CEO Jonathan Samuels added that perhaps the comparatively small number of borrowers who would be helped was putting off large lenders overhauling their legacy systems.

“Is it worth it? That’s what I think some of the larger lenders are toying with – to change all your internal processes,” he said.

“What’s the incentive for lenders to actually push it to the limit of what the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will allow?” he added.