Kingston joined Nottingham Building Society last year from Livemore, where he worked for around three years, initially as regional sales manager for around two years and then as head of key accounts.
He has also held senior roles at Legal and General (L&G), Bank of Ireland, Aviva and RSA.
Speaking to this publication, Kingston said that over the past year, the team has grown from two field-based business development managers (BDMs) to six field-based BDMs from 1 March, when it is bringing on a new London BDM.
He noted that this would be its first London-based BDM, adding that he was sure that criteria enhancements would “play well” in the London market. This includes maximum loan, different property types and foreign customers.
There are also two telephony BDMs, and Kingston said he would be looking at growing that team so that brokers will have a “dedicated point of contact” on the telephony and field-based side, and would ideally want a “twinning model” in place so there was one of each in each region.
Kingston said that it was also looking at hiring on the national accounts side and wanted to have a “dedicated resource” for some of the mortgage clubs and networks it works with.
Looking ahead, Kingston said that it was about “building fame”, and that the company was committed to a face-to-face presence with brokers.
“Whilst other lenders are perhaps pulling back, we’re certainly committed to face-to-face regardless of the size of the brokerage,” he said.
2024 is the ‘year of delivery’
Kingston said that Nottingham Building Society’s near-term plan was to help “underserved customers”, pointing to Nottingham Building Society’s chief executive Sue Hayes’ “clear vision”.
Hayes previously spoke to this publication about its strategy to look at “extraordinary borrowers” with different contracts and income.
Kingston continued: “It’s really about the year of delivery. We are certainly looking at some of those underserved areas in the market. I think there’s been a lot of talk about that over the last 12 to 18 months, but you’ll start to see that come through.
“We’ve already launched a sort of professional mortgage pilot, and then we’re about to move into some more exciting areas.”
He said that this could be customers with impaired credit, those new to the UK, self-employed customers, customers with complex income from multiple sources, and borrowers who want to buy with support, such as shared ownership or joint borrower sole proprietor (JBSP).
Technology and rebrand key to success
Kingston said that Nottingham Building Society’s recent partnership with Mqube to introduce AI underwriting would “open up a whole new world for us”.
He said that it would help the mutual “deliver some changes to the market really quickly”, including new propositions.
Kingston also said that there would be a rebrand of Nottingham Building Society that would “highlight the fact that we want to be true to our values and help customers own their own home”.
He continued that, as all of its mortgage business came from intermediaries, any technology enhancements would be to “help brokers help their customers”, whether that was in its existing customer proposition, product transfers or improved broker interaction.
When asked about Nottingham Building Society’s distribution strategy, Kingston said that it wanted to “do both” in terms of expanding its distribution further and consolidating existing relationships.
“We want to be open for business as much as possible. We don’t currently lend in Scotland, but we should be, so we’re exploring that,” he said.
Kingston said that it wanted to educate brokers that it was “not a regional lender” and, although it is the ninth-largest building society, it has “ambitions to be a lot bigger than we are currently” and wanted to be seen in all parts of Great Britain.
