The building society is planning a marketing campaign targeting brokers in the province up until the end of the year, before going live on 2 January.
Skipton has named Dave Sorrest as its intermediary sales manager (ISM) for NI.
Jackie Didcock, regional ISM for Skipton, said: “We pride ourselves on delivering good service and this will continue in NI. Dave has an extensive background as he’s covered NI in the past and he’s been chomping at the bit for us to start lending there and now it is happening.”
Sorrest will be based in Liverpool but will be making regular trips to NI to ensure brokers have regular contact with him. The building society will also be hosting a number of roadshows in January to promote the business to brokers.
Skipton also said it will be training its processing staff to make sure they can handle all the idiosyncratic details of the NI market.
NI-based broker, Ken Sives, owner of Re/Max Property Plus, said he was pleased to see another mortgage lender set up in the province.
He said: “The more lenders we have access to, the better, as in the past there have been restrictions on the number of lenders we could use. I’m sure with the increase in prices a lot of lenders who were previously scared to lend here will start looking at the market and as long as the product rates are good from Skipton, it will be good to have it in NI.
“To have someone who is over here on the ground is far superior compared to other lenders. While having regular contact on the phone is good, it’s always better to have a face-to-face chat and to know who you’ll be dealing with if something goes wrong with a particular case.”
