One source, who wished to remain unnamed, informed Mortgage Introducer that BM Solutions had appointed three new packagers in the last few weeks and added: “I, like many, would see this as a major u-turn by BM. It has made no secret about its reluctance to use packagers since regulation came into effect. Now Michael Bolton has moved over to HBOS, maybe the lender has more free reign to welcome packagers back.”
Carla Lavender, spokesperson at BM Solutions, confirmed it had recently added three new packagers to its panel but said: “We wouldn’t say this was a u-turn. We always said we wouldn’t deal with bad packagers. We never said we wouldn’t work with packagers.”
Guy Garrard, director of business development at em-financial, said: “I don’t think any u-turn by BM Solutions would surprise me. It’s just indicative of its management style. But then we would not work with BM as a packager.”
Andrew Seymour, chairman and chief executive of Optoma, said: “This is huge hypocrisy and a bit of a farce. BM lost a huge amount of distribution by dumping many of its packager partners and now it’s finally realising it has made a mistake.”
John Mawdsley, director of The Mortgage Partnership, which packages for BM Solutions, said: “Ultimately this is recognition of the importance of packagers and the role they play. It’s a positive move for the market.”
