Kensington Group has rebranded as The Northview Group, consisting of Kensington Mortgages, Acenden and New Street Mortgages, the latter of which is due to launch later this quarter.
Kensington Group has rebranded as The Northview Group, consisting of Kensington Mortgages, Acenden and New Street Mortgages, the latter of which is due to launch later this quarter.
Amany Attia, chief executive of The Northview Group, said: “We expect this new brand will provide a terrific platform to support the growth of Kensington and Acenden, allowing us to bring innovation, insight and transparency to the mortgage market.”
Keith Street will take on the role ofvice chairman of lending across The Northview Group with immediate effect.
He said: "What we now have is a scalable, multi-brand platform capable of originating mortgage assets and managing them through the entire lifecycle."
In November Attia confirmed that Kensington's sister lender New Street is expected to launch in January or early February and will offer a much broader range of products with a focus on technology.
David Finlay, former managing director at Barclays intermediary channel, is expected to head up the new lender’s sales and broker relationships.
Street said: "New Street will share Kensington’s commitment to mortgage intermediaries and transparent criteria, but whereas Kensington uses smart people to make individual lending decisions, New Street will use smart technology and slick processing to provide brokers with speed and consistency on more straight forward cases."
He added that the new lender will use data to deliver more targeted products to meet customer requirements and revealed the intention tolaunch several buy-to-let deals initially using "more attractive rental calculations in areas where rental incomes are more sustainable".
He added: "We think there is plenty of opportunity to take this approach to data driven innovation to other product areas."
New Street will launch in a controlled roll-out, with distribution initially limited to select intermediaries to ensure that systems and services are thoroughly tested before lending volumes are increased.
Street added that that he expected most brokers to have access to New Street products bythe second half of the year.
He also confirmed that later this month both the Kensington and Acenden businesses will move operations from Reading and High Wycombe to Maidenhead, bringing more than 500 people under one roof working on mortgage underwriting, processing and servicing.
Street added: "We have such a huge range of insight and understanding across the business and we are ready to use that to write a new chapter of development and growth.
"My job is to deliver that story and engage with our industry partners to ensure that we make the most of our unique opportunity to lead the market through reputation and innovation."
The rebrand follows the purchase of Kensington Group early last year by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and TPG Special Situations Partners.
