One thing you never forget in life is your mother’s maiden name. For some reason when dealing with large organisations this is the go to question to help prove that you are who you say you are. I find that after pressing option three and listening to some nauseating holding music for 12 minutes, any willingness to speak to the relevant organisation dissipates very quickly. Whilst this applies to most large companies this is just the beginning when dealing with a high street lender, especially if you are applying for a development loan. Be it your first pet’s name or mother’s maiden name there are a series of hoops to jump through even before you get to the application form.
It’s this lack of service or proactivity that has helped fuel the rise to the alternative finance sector, which in my opinion is probably more mainstream than alternative these days. The beauty of dealing with Regentsmead for a development loan is that there are no mother’s maiden names required. The advantage of being a small firm is that when one of our clients ring the office everyone knows who they are and of courses all the details about their project including where it is and what they are building. This is their livelihood after all, so why not show some interest in it?
I recently had a situation with my bank account where my building society rang me and then started asking me questions to confirm who I am. Whilst it’s always great to get an on the spot pub quiz about my life (certainly keeps me on my toes) it doesn’t help the bad feeling I have for the building society I bank with.
Since the recession we have seen a huge amount of new lenders come in to the market to provide further ‘alternatives’ to high street lenders. Anyone from bridging lenders to peer to peer funders are trying their hand at development finance now as the high street still lacks a distinct appetite for this form of lending. Some clients that are particularly rate sensitive that I speak to try to hold off and attempt to jump through the bank’s hoops to secure high street funding, however I find more often than not they return to us willing to pay a slightly higher rate in order to do business with a real person, that understands development and won’t repeatedly ask them for their mother’s maiden name.
