Despite First Active being labelled as the remortgage arm of the RBS Intermediary Partners range, brokers have claimed it has continued to sell its buy-to-let range and have admitted confusion over the exact RBS proposition, with the four RBS arms overlapping on the buy-to-let product sector.
An intermediary, who wished to remain anonymous, said the RBS range had undergone vast changes, but had not yet finished its transition, which has led to confusion. He said: “It seemed clear that the four brands of RBS completed different types of business, with one taking purchase, one taking responsibility of remortgage offers, another taking buy-to-let and so on. But First Active has continued to offer a buy-to-let range, despite it being labelled as the RBS remortgage arm. There seems to be a bit of confusion about exactly who is offering what.”
However Rob Davies, spokesperson for RBS Intermediary Partners, denied there was any confusion as to the proposition, and confirmed the cross over of product ranges would be phased out during the coming months. He explained: “There is a slight cross over of shadow products at the moment from the four arms, and the buy-to-let deals by First Active will be phased out. However, we did not want to have an immediate stop and cut off any transitions it had while the change was going on and disadvantage borrowers. These will be phased out in the coming months.”
Kevin Morgan, managing director at Consilium Financial Planning, said: “People need to know about changes and I expect RBS would put out an announcement when the First Active buy-to-let deal finishes. It may be that it wants it to die naturally, but intermediaries should be made aware of the final dates.”
