Commenting on the figures Nick Baxter (Mortgage Promotions Director) said, “I am delighted to see that the FSA has issued 3,762 Scope of Permission Notices (SPN’s) to mortgage firms and 2,917 variations of permission to firms who wish to carry out mortgage activities. Even with my maths this means that there will be at least 6,679 directly authorised firms. We have always said that we anticipated nearly 3,000 firms would leave the market come FSA regulation leaving a total population of around 10,000 firms giving mortgage advice. The most pleasing aspect of these figures is that nearly 67% of the expected final population have recognised that direct authorisation is better for their customers and their business.”
Nick Baxter continued, "No product provider or adviser could have ever been in any doubt that Mortgage Promotions would follow precisely the MCOB model of a mortgage club and as such will only work with directly regulated firms. This level of direct authorisation proves our decision has always been right and we look forward to providing a range of products as wide as any network, but on a menu basis where registered users only use the products they want, without the need to give up their independence by being an appointed representative”.
Finally Nick Baxter commented, “Hidden in the FSA announcement was the fact that SPNs have been issued to 78 new firms and to 32 existing firms wishing to operate a mortgage network. This means that there will be around 100 mortgage networks fighting it out for their slice of the remaining 3,000 firms who want to be appointed representatives. An average of 300 firms each will not provide a sustainable income stream for networks and we expect to see extensive rationalisation amongst networks in the coming months.”
