The Co-Op has been formed to act as a conduit to aggregate distribution to produce pools of similar mortgages. This will enable new lenders to enter the UK market, while existing UK lenders will be able to write business in new product areas. The combined distribution strength and product knowledge of the Co-Op will act as the catalyst to stimulate these developments.
The initial members of the Co-Op are: BDS Mortgage Desk, Genesis Home Loans, ICMG, Mortgage 2000, MLG, Pink Home Loans & Solent Mortgage Services. Between them, the members of the Co-Op will distribute approximately £5 billion of mortgage completions in 2002, a significant proportion of which will be in the niche lending areas of sub prime, self cert and buy to let.
Commenting on the move, Mark Charlesworth, managing director of MLG and chairman of the Co-Op, said: “This is an exciting new development in the mortgage market. Consolidating distribution in this way will allow the members to combine the continued support of their current lender relationships with the opportunity to create a new market in the UK for the pooling and distribution of mortgages in the niche product areas. This could ultimately lead to the development of a more fluid and efficient market for the funding and trading of these products.”
The individual members of the Co-Op will continue to operate as B2B mortgage distributors and packagers. Existing lender relationships will not be affected.
