Chris Tanner, HLP’s managing director says that fast track is likely to disappear as the FSA believes wrongly, but understandably, that fast track is self certification by another name. In his opinion fast track is a worthwhile facility designed primarily to speed up processing which benefits the customer and the lender and also reduces administration costs as well.
He said: “Fair to admit that the industry has not done itself any favours in the past and the FSA has rightly come to the conclusion that fast track is being used by some brokers as a substitute for self certification when it becomes obvious the client cannot support the claims made on an application form. But before we protest too much there is evidence which shows that Abbey has already excluded brokers from their fast track panel when there is no response to a request for evidence to back up details on the application.”
He added “I feel that there is middle ground here. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the FSA should consider allowing lenders to keep specific fast track schemes but make them available only to good quality networks and firms. This will help maintain the quality required and help reposition fast track in the minds of intermediaries in general as a tool for speeding up the process and not to circumvent the veracity of the application.”
