Rob Jupp, chief executive of Brightstar said it is time the industry came off the fence and debated in public what many in private already believe should be happening.
He said: “We need to be able to tackle the large number of people not able to get a mortgage or trapped in their existing borrowing arrangements.
“I am not advocating a return to the ‘anything goes’ culture that developed during the last boom. However, since the credit crunch, we have all become a bit brain washed with the mantra that everything to do with non conforming mortgages was bad, and worse that no one could talk about it in anything but a negative manner without being labelled as a pariah.”
“Yet, here we are in 2014, still with potential customers being shunned by the major lenders because they do not fit into a squeaky clean template.
“Fortunately, we in the specialist lending sector have been able to place growing numbers with alternative lenders, such as building societies and other new lenders, who are able to see beyond the myopic focus of the credit score.
“However, we really need to get over this blinkered ideology about what constitutes risk to both lender and client.
“The current orthodoxy fails to differentiate between the feckless and desperate, whom the industry has every reason to refuse and the still growing rump of customers, exhibiting a past deterioration in their credit history, but having a reasonable explanation which demonstrates the reasons behind their credit record.”
Jupp said he believes the UK needs a grown up non conforming sector to help bring these people back into the fold.
He said: “They are being stigmatised based on a continuing kneejerk reaction by the larger lending community and wider political perception to the credit crunch that happened over five years ago.
“I am not suggesting that all would be customers should be accommodated, but a properly regulated non conforming sector should be a crucial part of the lending matrix.
“The industry’s cherry picking continues to prevail and only makes the imbalance in the lending market more extreme. 2014 would be a good year to start talking above a whisper about non conforming clients. ”
