Pitch 4 Finance was launched last year with the aim of helping intermediaries look for products in the specialist market. Its technology matches borrowers and brokers with multiple lenders, who pitch for the case.
Speaking to Specialist Lending Solutions nearly a year on from its launch, founder and chief executive Miranda Khadr (pictured) said the platform has over 190 lenders and 1,000 brokers were registered, with further growth on the horizon.
Khadr said that she came up with the platform to provide a more centralised source of information for the specialist lending space.
She said: “Our belief is it [the platform] should be as whole of market as possible, without being able to say I have definitely approached all lenders in the marketplace you have no way of finding and testing whether or not your solution is correct [for your customer].”
She added that currently the split between brokers and clients using the platform directly was 50/50, but said the platform would benefit brokers especially.
She said it had got “good feedback” from its regular broker users, and experienced brokers would use it as a sense check to ensure they had got the best deal for their client.
Registration is free for brokers and the platform charges 0.25 per cent, which Khadr said it “fraction of the cost” of other packagers.
“I want to help brokers, so they are able to give the best solution but not charge the packaging rates that they were previously charged,” she said.
She added that Pitch 4 Finance would also save brokers time and effort as their team would follow up with lenders, get them to update criteria and ask relevant questions.
The reduced administrative burden may also minimise the need for additional hires, allow brokers to spend more time with customers, and speedier offers will bring more positive customer experience which is beneficial for the referral cycle.
Khadr said: “I think across the industry as a whole, brokers are a slightly unsung hero. They’re helping someone achieve a future that they aspire to and they’re trying to do that in the best possible way with a solution that best fits the client.
“Sometimes that’s not just about money, or the cost of a piece of work. So, anything that you can take away work-wise so they can help someone get to their aspiration that’s got to be good.”
Commercial development ‘product gaps’
Khadr said Pitch 4 Finance was looking to grow the number of lenders on its platform, whether they were big or small and across a number of specialisms including specialist, commercial, development, bridging, complex buy-to-let, business lenders, invoice finance and peer-2-peer.
She added that some lenders listed on the platform did not advertise, such as private banks, and were in a “secondary hidden lender panel”. One example included a New York fund that lent to theatres and theatre productions.
Looking across the market, she said the commercial development sector had product gaps lenders could look at.
She explained: “We are asking lenders to look at the product gaps. For a while there weren’t many people at all doing commercial development. People would have commercial development and unless it was pre-let or pre-purchase, certainly during the pandemic, it was almost impossible to place.
“It has improved now but I still think there’s room for improvement.”
She added: “Commercial development is underfunded and to tick every box in that market is quite hard, especially on smaller projects. So I think reaching out to lenders in our space and having that conversation around gaps is really important.”
Khadr said the platform was also going to focus on business loans as some lenders didn’t offer them.
She said: “The process is faster and fairly straightforward. In some cases, less information is required and because of some of the tech that’s out there, like Xero, showing me the figures that’s easier business loans.”
Plans for the future
Khadr said there were multiple ideas in the works to build on the platform, including an API integration, lead provision service and reminder system.
She said the platform was currently working on API integrations, which will minimise the need for brokers to input information multiple times and information would already be on a lender’s board.
Khadr said there were some challenges to this due to the different CRM systems but was optimistic it would save brokers time and effort.
Khadr continued that the firm was also considering a lead provision service where it would provide leads to brokerages and would only charge on completion, but said she wanted to engage more with brokers to ensure such a service would work for them.
She is also contemplating a second reminder system that diarises and issues reminders for brokers for renewals and further potential business so they can find existing opportunities easily.
Khadr said breaking down key dates in this way could save brokers two to three hours a day and provide a format where it was “really easy for that broker to stay in touch”.
She said the firm wanted to continue with webinars and was considering doing drop-in sessions where brokers can come with difficult or challenging cases.
Khadr added that there would be a second version of Pitch 4 Finance which was aiming to provide brokers with a white-label technology solution where their client has their own dashboard and can get updates on a brokers’ progress.
She noted that the company was rebranding the site at the end of March and “going quite heavily down the educational piece” and trying to do more segmentation within its audience.
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