Manchester Building Society has announced that its subsidiary Mortgage Broking Services Limited (MBSL) has gone live with its mortgage network offering.
A total of 32 appointed representative firms of the network have already been approved by the FSA and the network is expected to increase to more than 40 firms by the end of the year.
Skipton relaunches capped rate
Skipton Building Society has relaunched its three-year capped rate mortgage by reducing the cap and the initial rate.
Borrowers will receive a 0.85 per cent discount for the first two years along with the guarantee that, whatever happens to UK interest rates, its rate will not exceed 5.75 per cent before 28 February 2008.
Record growth for Freedom
Freedom Finance has reported another year of record growth with profits increasing from a pre-tax profit of £6 million to £11 million on a turnover of £36.6 million.
Rupert Webb, chief executive of Freedom Finance, said: “Investment in advancing technology and staff development has helped us to expand our capability.”
Correction
Last Week, Mortgage Introducer reported that a Mortgageforce client had been offered a two-year stepped fixed rate from Abbey for Intermediaries.
Abbey has advised us that this is not a product currently offered by them and that the mortgage in question was actually a two-year fixed rate deal.
NU changes commission rates for lifetime morgages
Norwich Union has announced that it’s changing commission rates for advisers who write lifetime mortgage business.
Standard commission terms – which most IFAs receive - will increase to 1 per cent of the loan amount released by the customer. Currently they receive 0.5 per cent of loan value plus £150. The new terms will come into force on 1 January 2005.
Paymentcare offers general insurance referral service
Paymentcare has launched a general insurance service for brokers and advisers to refer clients to.
The service is free of charge and, once accepted for the service, advisers refer clients to Paymentcare’s call centre by e-mail or fax, whereby clients are contacted on a same-day basis and offered a ‘no obligation’ quote for home insurance and MPPI.
Huntswood launches endowment compensation calculator
Huntswood Outsourcing has launched a calculator aimed at saving £11 million in calculating mortgage endowments complaints.
It is claimed that the calculator will reduce the cost implication to the industry by over 90 per cent. With the number of mortgage endowment complaints forecast to exceed 200,000, the cost of calculating the compensation using the current provider is large.
CII appoints Ellis as group public affairs director
John Ellis has been appointed to the newly created position of group public affairs director of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).
Currently public affairs director of the LIA (Life Insurance Association), Ellis will take up his new position on 1 January 2005 when the LIA officially merges with SOFA (Society of Financial Advisers) to become The Personal Finance Society - part of the CII.
Scarborough unveils broker helpdesk
Scarborough Building Society has announced that its new Intermediary Mortgage Desk is ready to produce compliant KFIs.
Intermediaries can visit www.scarboroughbs.co.uk/intermediaries which provides an e-mail link to the mortgage desk.
Tony Burdin, head of retail strategy at Scarborough, said: ‘‘Scarborough Building Society has invested a great deal of time and effort to ensure we are compliant with mortgage regulation.”
TBMC launches online scheme finder
Cardiff-based buy-to-let specialist processor, The Business Mortgage Company (TBMC) has launched an online scheme finder for its entire buy-to-let range of products.
It shows whether the rental fits a particular schemes rental stress test and if not, by how much it misses out.
Daily credit risk updates for lender
Callcredit has become the first UK credit reference agency to offer lenders a daily service alerting them to changes in their customers’ credit risk profiles.
The service, known as CallMonitor, is designed to help lenders avoid bad debts from over-indebted and fraudulent customers by providing early warnings of potential problems.
