The provider is facing criticism for taking three weeks to view a mortgage application submitted via the Mortgage Trading Exchange (mte) platform and for initially accepting a case it then declined six weeks later.
Noel Ranson, principal of NSR Mortgages, said dealing with the lender’s Rayleigh service centre had been extremely problematic. He said: “Nationwide’s service is the worst I have experienced. Since it returned to the market with some leading rates, the service is absolutely non-existent. Not looking at applications for three weeks other than to instruct service is not treating customers fairly and if you complain, it says it is over capacity.”
Nationwide admitted it was aware of problems with its Rayleigh centre and said it was working to rectify the situation.
Tim Hughes, head of intermediary markets at Nationwide, said: “Our service proposition has improved significantly over the last 12 months and we made a number of changes to the mte system. We are aware of the issues with mte and are closely working with them to create a whole new form for submissions.”
However, Ian Crampton, sales director for Ferndown Ltd, said service levels had failed to improve. He said: “The problems with Nationwide and mte have been happening for the last 12 months and no one seems able to resolve it. I recently waited four hours to get an agreement-in-principle (AIP), because the information got lost in its system. You then have to give the information over the phone and trust that the person inputs it correctly. Plus, you can’t do the full application online, which is a very strange format. It certainly makes me think twice about using it.”
Mark Lofthouse, CEO of mte, said: “There are not any endemic problems with the system, but we are working with Nationwide to iron out any issues.”
