Ramesh Sharma, managing director of Quaero, wouldn’t confirm the exact launch date but said it was “imminent”.
He said the key to a sourcing system in the bridging market was helping brokers discern what deal was best for their customer.
Quaero will rank lenders’ deals based on criteria and the total to pay including rate, interest charged and rolled up and fees.
Sharma said: “An independent and transparent bridging sourcing system is much needed in the short-term market and the ability to rank bridging lenders in order based on the cost for the client, inclusive of rate, interest and fees is vital for brokers trying to compare deals.”
Sharma said his system would seek to offer brokers the means to compare short-term loans, secured loans, regulated and unregulated deals – giving brokers a paper trail to justify their advice to the regulator.
And he added: “We’re trying to pre-empt regulation coming to the short-term market and help give brokers a paper trail proving why they advised their client to take a bridge rather than any other form of finance.
“We also hope this will help filter leads for lenders to cut the amount of wasted time spent underwriting cases that don’t suit their criteria.”
Steve McColl, investment partner at Soho Corporate, said: “Whilst it is an interesting development, bridging is not really a tick-box industry.
“Most cases have kinks and quirks that need to be talked through with the funder to ascertain as to whether the case can be made to fit.
“In my mind, the broker-packagers relationship with the lending partners is key, and whilst a deal matrix can assist the process, it is the packagers’ specialist knowledge of the lenders methodology that really makes the deal happen.”
McColl added that he thought a deal matrix would not assist in weeding out which lenders will actually complete on a transaction.
“This is where the packagers’ knowledge comes to the fore,” he argued.
