The packager association has urged lenders to be ‘more specific’ when ‘hard’ footprints are being made as it could affect borrowers’ credit rating and their ability to proceed with a mortgage.
Claire Wilkinson, associate compliance director at RAMP, admitted that lenders needed to highlight if they left ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ footprints. She said: “This is a debate which the industry urgently needs to have. The changes in technology are a valuable tool for everybody but we must not lose sight of what is in the best interests of the customer. There needs to be greater dialogue. I am sure that once the implications are understood, the industry will respond quickly but in the meantime, customers are going to suffer, which is hardly a good advertisement for the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ (TCF) initiative.”
John Rice, managing director at RAMP, added: “Mortgage intermediaries are beginning to use online facilities in greater numbers and it is vital that the industry moves quickly to sort out this crucial area.”
However Kim Barrett, proprietor at KS Barrett & Associates, argued that the issue of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ credit footprints should not be a concern. He explained: “Anyone that is putting forward a mortgage application should want it to succeed. Intermediaries should have an idea if the client is likely to succeed with the application. The issue would only be a wider industry concern if intermediaries were trying to submit mortgage cases that they knew might not succeed.”
