Here for you: Paul Wertheim

The lending sector is a very different place now than it was at the start of 2022. This year has thrown some huge challenges at us that have affected every business in our industry: a European war, cost of living crisis, a new prime minister and cabinet, and the sad passing of Queen Elizabeth II, to name just a few

However, despite this upheaval, we’ve been able to remain steadfast in our business function, consistently shaping our products and services to the needs and requirements of our core partners: borrowers, brokers, professional introducers and investors. In short, Mint remains here for you, our clients. In fact, while other lenders have struggled for business over the past 18 months, our loan book value has more than doubled. We’ve hit record levels of enquiries, applications, completions and redemptions within the past 12 months. All while maintaining our 100% lending success rate since the company’s inception over 11 years ago. One of the core facets that’s enabled us to grow exponentially through such a turbulent period is the continuous innovation and improvements we’ve made to our product suite—the Mint Power Products. With ongoing benchmarking against industry trends and competitor rates, we always ensure our borrowers are the ones getting the best deal. For example, the recent launch of our commercial bridge product, with up to 70% LTV, and desktop valuation available up to 50% LTV, was devised following an internal client feedback and consultation process. Obviously, with this increase in business and loans being underwritten, we’ve also grown our team in line with loan book growth during a period when other lenders are reducing their size. Mint now employs over 50 permanent staff members, including a dedicated team of underwriters, as well as a specialist portfolio management team who assist our borrowers through the different stages of their loans and retention releases. This ensures the best use of funding at the best times, setting each loan up for success.

A robust set of monitoring tools and systems enables us to accurately track market activity and keep our clients up to speed with any market changes or trends. Monitored on an ongoing basis, this ensures that we can be proactive as a business to changing market conditions. We are then able to pass this information to our clients, so that they can anticipate and prepare for things like increasing building costs, stamp duty changes, or increases in VAT and interest rates, all of which have impacted borrowers in the past year. One of the most exciting developments for Mint as a business this year however, has been securing our new multi-million-pound block-bridging facility with Aldermore Bank, enabling us to complete even more deals each and every month. With an institutional lending partner onboard, this also enables the business to look towards the future and focus on providing more long-term loans such as three- to five-year term products and BTL mortgages. We’ve also continued to strengthen our panel of legal partners over the past year, and have recently streamlined our legals process. This ensures our end users have a quick and easy legals process, putting us in the position of turning enquiries into completions quicker. In an ever-changing market, the Mint team has continually kept itself at the top of its game, ensuring we can continue to be here for you— our existing and future clients.