This is my third monthly article for Mortgage Introducer and as usual it is meant to be a market analysis of the secured loans section of the industry.
However, here we go again – I am afraid I am not giving you facts and figures relating to DataMonitor’s latest report on how the secured lending market is going to grow by a ‘zillion per cent’ and that every man, woman and child in the country has got credit cards in every pocket and needs to consolidate their debts into one affordable monthly payment, either by remortgaging their house or by taking a secured loan on the kids Wendy House in the back garden(only kidding, before someone calls our broker number and asks if we have a lender who will accept that as a suitable security).
Being in the financial services industry, we should all be aware of this, and it is part of being able to offer advice that you are aware of these facts and figures, so you can understand what situation your clients are in. So I will leave that to the various writers who begin each article with the usual figures and then go on to explain the virtues of dealing with this secured loan broker or that secured loan broker because they offer a prize or a weekend away.
Professionalism and
compliance
Being in the secured loan market it is important that we offer a professional and compliant service, that we continue to improve how we treat our clients and that we process our cases as quickly and as efficiently as possible. In order to do this, we are continuously investing in staff training, IT, new products, phone and technology systems and everything else that can improve our company.
over 80 staff based in Glasgow and a sales development team of seven covering the country. All of these staff members are continually being trained in the same way that any other people involved in the strictly regulated market of mortgages are trained.
So it really makes my blood boil when I pick up the trade press and all I read is that ‘secured loans should be regulated by the FSA’, ‘I would never recommend a secured loan’, ‘there is no place for secured loans in our market’. Are these people, and I do not want to quote names, the same people that used similar negative quotes when Kensington Mortgages opened up the non-conforming lending market in the early 1990s?
Look what that market has grown into and the amount of employment and home ownership it generates in this country. So, to all cynics out there, take the blinkers off and have a look at the opportunities for your business to become involved in a market that genuinely is a serious alternative to a remortgage, and in most cases can result in you giving the best available option to your client.
Taking notice
As in the early 90s when investment banks began to take notice of what Kensington was doing in the specialist lending market (I do not believe that it should be sub-prime), I am sure that at this moment there are a number of mortgage lenders and investors who are considering moving into the secured lending market due to the growth and demand for the product.
Having been involved in secured loans since the early 1980s, I have never been as excited about my market, and I feel the people who state that there is no need for this product are not only kidding themselves but they are not doing what is meant to be the whole ethos of this industry which is to give ‘best advice’.
It is for these reasons and for the pride in the business of offering a knowledgeable service that our company and many other brokers who are in this market, treats the training and compliance aspect of our business as an utmost priority.
In summary, I would like to think that in a year from now, when hopefully I am still doing this column, I will be talking about the continued development of our market and that the three or four new lenders in the market will all be delighted they moved into secured loans. I also hope that it is being embraced 100 per cent by the rest of the industry. If not, we are letting the public down.
