Under FSA rules mortgage intermediaries are only allowed to be an AR of one Principal firm, however Mark Mountney, managing director of Premier Mortgage Management (PMM), has revealed that his firm has registered with more than one network to ensure it will definitely be able to trade following ‘Mortgage Day’.
“PMM intends to be directly authorised by the FSA but we realise that even having a ‘minded to authorise’ (MTA) letter does not guarantee that we will be able to trade from 31 October,” Mountney said.
“Obviously you can only go with one Principal, but if you can start the ball rolling with credit checks and references now then you will have less to do should the worst happen and your firm is not authorise or your chosen Principal is unable to take you on,” he explained.
Rob Clifford, managing director of franchise operation Mortgageforce, endorsed Mountney’s view. “It is absolutely imperative that brokers protect their businesses by giving themselves as many options as possible, even if this means going to four or five networks,” he said.
Tony Jones, managing director of Pink disagreed, saying that applying to multiple networks would be time consuming. “By now brokers should have a good idea which network they might want to join. If they have any doubts then they should not join it.”
