The IMLA panel discussed how lenders and advisers can give more well-rounded advice to older borrowers.
Lenders and insurers should team up to offer more equity release products, Aldermore’s group managing director of mortgages Charles Haresnape has urged.
At yesterday’s Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association Great Mortgage Debate a panel, which included money journalist Simon Read, discussed how lenders and advisers can give more well-rounded advice to older borrowers.
Haresnape (pictured), group managing director of mortgages at Aldermore, who contributed from the crowd, said: “More partnerships have to be formed.
“Lenders – particularly specialist lenders or niche lenders – might have the desire to offer equity release but do not have the funding structure.
“Partnerships on the insurance side and the lenders side should increasingly give more funding opportunities.”
Read said advisers need to think about service rather than specific products, whether equity release or otherwise.
He said: “The service should be ‘What do you need? Do you need to borrow money right through till you’re 90?’
“Well there’s whole a whole range of products: it could be equity release, a lifetime loan, it could be something else, but put the service first and maintain that, so year-after-year if one of them does die the lender is on hand to help them rearrange their finances.
“So forget about the products. This is what I’d like to see from building societies and banks.”
