John Rice, managing director of the Regulatory Alliance of Mortgage Packagers (RAMP), told Mortgage Introducer that TMB has no intention of introducing the services to bolster its proposition.
MI last week revealed TMB had come under fire from major packaging firm, em-financial, which had received a visit from the lender’s regional business manager.
Guy Garrard, director of business development at em-, said the lender could give assurance it could provide any of the requirements it needs as a serious packager.
Garrard confirmed em- will not be doing any business with TMB until it provides these facilities.
Nigel Payne, managing director of TMB, which has declared its intention to be the number one lender for packagers, responded by assuring the packager industry that onsite underwriting and branded lending, which it admits are important facilities to provide, were ‘on its radar’ for the future.
But Rice said his meeting earlier this month with TMB’s director of sales, Peter Charge, contradicted this claim. He said: “Peter said the plans were to have an ‘all singing, all dancing’ call centre which would alleviate the need to introduce onsite underwriting.”
“At RAMP we believe the market needs onsite underwriting. It seems TMB has misled the market on these requirements. I don’t believe it has any plans to provide branded lending either. With no onsite underwriting, I can’t see how they can do branded lending.”
But Charge replied: “We have no immediate intention to introduce branded lending. But we are reviewing the situation. We do have onsite underwriting – two roving underwriters at Mortgages Times and TMO’s offices, but not at any of RAMP’s members’ offices. We are looking at technology solutions as an alternative to onsite underwriting and will review which works best.”
