From this month the Welsh building society will offer access to packaged Smart Commercial Loans through mortgage brokers. The range of small commercial mortgages includes prime, near prime and self-cert mortgages.
Keren Jones, who previously worked as a mortgage broker relationship manager for Principality, has been appointed to manage the Smart Commercial Loans project. She is joined by Kelly McNicholl, previously a senior associate in the mortgage service centre at Principality.
Keren Jones said: “We decided to go into small commercial loans because we saw an obvious gap for them in the Principality mortgage range. Until now, we’ve been offering residential and buy-to-let mortgages as well as large commercial loans.
“We have an established relationship with mortgage advisers across the UK and we discovered that residential mortgage advisers came across customers looking for commercial loans. However, they didn’t have the support to deal with these requests. We are now helping them to plug that gap.”
Without access to a commercial mortgage, many businesses have lacked the capital to expand, had to rely upon renting and been left to support their capital needs with temporary and expensive short term finance. The Small Business Federation has reported the huge climb in credit cards being used. Long term mortgage finance offers many small and medium sized business operators the ability to invest in their business and consolidate other forms of finance.
Keren added: “Commercial First is the ideal partner for us. The company has expertise in offering small commercial loans and working with mortgage brokers to provide simple, flexible and straightforward mortgage products. Principality can enhance this product offering with a dedicated support team to enable the mortgage broker to do more business quicker and easier.”
Small commercial loans packaged by Principality will typically range between £50,000 and £500,000. Businesses acceptable include pubs, hotels, bed and breakfasts, retail with living accommodation and farms, industrial properties and offices.
Stephen Johnson, sales and marketing director at Commercial First, said: “We decided to work in partnership with Principality as it is a building society known for being forward thinking and innovative.”
