Speaking on the Mortgage Solutions video panel debate in association with Accord Mortgages, Stephanie Charman, strategic relationships director at Sesame Bankhall Group (SBG), said firms would be at different stages of readiness depending on the company and its size.
She said SBG has hosted a number of informational events to keep firms up to date with what was required of them, and these had generated record levels of interest.
Charman added: “Advisers want to get it right, they want to interpret that guidance correctly and I think it is key for us as distributors and lenders to provide that support.”
Clare Beardmore, director of Legal and General (L&G) Mortgage Club, said the company was making use of the data collected on its affordability platform SmartrFit to inform lenders of whether their products were effectively targeted to their intended customers.
She said: “If a lender’s target market is x, y and z, are they attracting that target market? Are they saying ‘yes’, are they saying ‘no’ are they producing ESIS for that? Or actually, are they by default attracting a different target market?”
Beardmore said the way this would work was not yet finalised and L&G was still working with lenders to develop this. She said the firm was also thinking about how this could be provided to the broker market.
When asked what benefits consumers would see first, Jeremy Duncombe, managing director of Accord Mortgages, said a consistency in service.
“I don’t dispute that customers are getting really good advice and have been over the years.
“They can go to the fair value notices and understand what a lender is trying to do, who they’re trying to attract, the types of fees that are being charged by advisers, what’s fair,” Duncombe said.
He added that the consumer would have a better understanding of what the sector was trying to do as an industry and connect that with the advice they were receiving.
“We’re not trying to fix a problem here, we’re just trying to make it more consistent.”
This is the last in a series of four videos by Jeremy Duncombe, managing director at Accord Mortgages, Clare Beardmore, director of Legal and General Mortgage Club, Stephanie Charman, strategic relationships director at Sesame Bankhall Group and host Victoria Hartley, contributing editor of Mortgage Solutions.
