A broker, who wished to remain anonymous, said lenders with both direct and intermediary products should put these on sourcing systems, such as Trigold, to allow for a level playing field.
He highlighted Halifax as a lender that was ‘courting transfer business from intermediaries’ yet pricing direct propositions differently to the intermediary channel, which did not have access to that information.
The broker said such direct deals should be placed on sourcing systems and not hidden from brokers’ view.
The source said: “The danger is that the customer knows more than the adviser and that doesn’t put us in a good position. At the end of the day, we should be at the forefront of knowledge, whether it is direct or not.
"It is fairer to tell the client to go direct even if it cuts out the broker. That’s the craziness of TCF. I feel there should be a lot more transparency.”
A spokesperson for Halifax commented: “Our ranges of products are priced according to which channel they will be sold through so it would be inappropriate to have direct products on sourcing systems.”
David Thompson, sales director at Trigold, said: “Trigold Prospector is solely a business-to-business proposition and, although in theory there is nothing to stop products being listed that are only available direct to consumers, I don’t think this is something that lenders would want.
"The relationship between lender and broker is an important one and there are not many lenders that would want to jeopardise this relationship by allowing products on sourcing systems that brokers would not be allowed access to. At present, we only place products on Trigold that lenders supply to us and request to be promoted to our user base.”
Mark Lofthouse, chief executive of Mortage Brain, commented: “From our perspective, brokers have to give a whole of market solution and we do our best to provide a whole of market system for the intermediary side.”
