Having rolled out its franchise packaging service in August, Mike Lloyd, head of sales at Mortgage Bureau, confirmed three franchises were already in operation and said another six would be in place by the end of February.
He said: “We have received a lot of interest in our franchising, having got three started since September. Our main priority is to ensure distribution is in place and if a company does sign-up then we don’t want it to be detrimental to other parts of their business. We firmly believe the two can work separately. We would have some concerns if the business mix for the firm were to change drastic-ally as a result of becoming franchised as that could bring up ‘best advice’ issues.”
Mortgage Bureau is currently looking at a number of destinations for future franchises with brokers having to submit a minimum of 15 completions per month to be considered.
Lloyd added: “Many people we have contacted said this is the best time to be thinking about opportunities like this. With growth key to next year in all sectors, franchising is an ideal opportunity.”
However, Mike Pendergast, IFA at Zen Financial Services, argued that for most cases packaging should not be the first port-of-call. He said: “Packaging is useful for the unusual case but most mainstream cases can be happily forwarded direct to the lender.
“The only other benefit of using a packager is the higher volume companies do have access to special deals and rates from time-to-time. A large number of packagers franchised under one banner would presumably increase their buying power and enable them to get access to better deals from the lenders.”
