Mortgage Introducer March 2023

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The clocks – and mortgage brokers –go forward

Isaw them first the other day, shimmering brightly in the dark, cold recesses of my winter garden – snowdrops peeking through the otherwise insipid brown tones of the flower beds I had long neglected over an inhospitably cold season.

Like a white light supposedly leading you to somewhere better, they emerged with a vibrancy akin to the heads of small chicks breaking through eggshells, doing what they’re supposed to do – heralding the first sign of spring.

Popularly seen as symbols of hope, snowdrops are much-loved, presumably by those who have endured a long, drawn-out winter – and, wow, did this one seem never-ending.

Maybe it was the cost of living and our collective reluctance to turn up the central heating to its max; maybe it was the fallout from an autumn, and a helter-skelter economy, that the mortgage industry would rather forget. But spring has been a long time coming.

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Feast your expectant eyes, then, on the latest edition of Mortgage Introducer , where we effectively play Mother Nature and usher in spring, with all of its inspiring glory. You will find plenty of hope in these pages.

Rob Clifford, the CEO of mortgage network Stonebridge, and the subject of our cover feature, is an entrepreneurial success story who declares, “This is still a very vibrant, busy mortgage market.” We hear, too, from Leon Diamond, the fascinating founder of LiveMore Capital, who is helping reshape the later-life market, with a compelling take on getting older: “People are living longer, are healthier, and are working into later life. It’s about enjoying life.” There are also wise words from Karl Wilkinson, the CEO of Access Financial Services, who says confidently, “There is still business out there; there is always business to be had,” while, in our special Buy-To-Let supplement, Buster Tolfree, director of mortgages at United Trust Bank, embraces the market opportunities he sees, and says of the economy, “I think we have ridden the worst of it.”

Spring is sprung – let’s make the most of it.

Simon Meadows

A resilient market

With competition continuing to heat up in the residential and remortgage space, increasingly attractive rates are likely to emerge for potential buyers and existing homeowners to stimulate further activity and confidence into Q2.

REMORTGAGE

The first few months of 2023 have seen an abundance of positive mortgage rate changes across a variety of market sectors, and plenty of cautious optimism is permeating the intermediary channel. This follows a swift upturn in confidence over the last weeks of 2022 after what can only be described as a turbulent autumn period from a political and economic standpoint.

INTERMEDIARY CONFIDENCE AND CASELOADS

The notable increase in confidence from October to December was evident in Q4 2022 research from the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA), which suggested that while 56 per cent of intermediaries had been “confident” in the market in October, this confidence level rose to 70 per cent in December. Overall, 87 per cent of intermediaries still reported that they were either “very confident” or “fairly confident” in their own business outlook during the final quarter of 2022, a dip of only seven per cent from Q3, despite the October disruption and rising interest rates.

Delving a little deeper into this IMLA data, it was reassuring to see that the average number of mortgage cases intermediaries estimated for the year held steady at 94 compared to a peak of 103 at the end of 2021 and an average of 93 in the previous quarter.

There’s no denying the impact of the fallout from the autumn mini budget, but this data does help demonstrate the sheer resilience of the mortgage market and how quickly it has bounced back.

Rising activity levels were already apparent in a remortgage sector that was suggested to have experienced a substantial instruction uplift in January, as a growing number of borrowers sought to gain longer-term security. Data from LMS highlighted that remortgage instructions rose by 33 per cent in January, as rates fell for the first time since September.

Figures within this study outlined an additional 25 per cent remortgage completion rate in January, although pipeline cases decreased by 11.9 per cent month-on-month. Thirty-six per cent of borrowers were suggested to have increased their loan size in January, with 63 per cent taking out a five-year fixed-rate product. Thirtyseven per cent said their main aim when remortgaging was to gain longer-term security, the most popular response.

There is a case for suggesting that this spike could be viewed as seasonal due to lower instruction volumes experienced in December, but, as also highlighted in the data, January 2023 figures were still higher than those of January 2022, which represents a highly positive trend for the remortgage market – a trend that is likely to continue as mortgage rates soften and homeowners who were sitting on the remortgage fence are now starting to act.

PURCHASE ACTIVITY AND BUYER DEMAND

Turning our attention to the purchase arena, according to the Rightmove House Price Index for February, increasing numbers of buyers are returning, with the market starting 2023 much better than many expected.

The latest snapshot of buyer demand showed that the number of people contacting agents was up by 11 per cent in the first two weeks of February compared with the same period in 2019’s more typical market. The property portal also advised that the number of sales agreed continued to rebound, so that it was just 11 per cent down from 2019’s levels, recovering from a decrease of 15 per cent at the start of the year, and a 30 per cent fall in the immediate aftermath of the mini budget.

The index also indicated that, while there is still an overall shortage of property for sale – down by 24 per cent compared to 2019 – there is now more choice than a year ago, which should offer prospective buyers increased confidence for their onward move. The latest sales-agreed figures also showed that, somewhat surprisingly, the first-time buyer sector is recovering better than the discretionary upper-end sector.

This evaluation of the current housing market makes for some interesting reading. As highlighted throughout the index, the combination of sellers being more realistic on price and an improving picture of the number of sales being agreed suggests a softer landing for the market than many expected.

It’s still relatively early days for the housing and mortgage markets in 2023, but many positive signs continue to emerge, especially when it comes to the point around the recovery of the first-time buyer (FTB) market. Any forward momentum from this vital component of the homeownership chain will provide a shot in the arm for these markets. And the lending community will continue to play a key role in providing a range of innovative and competitive solutions to help more FTBs overcome the inevitable challenges that will continue to present themselves over the course of 2023. M I

Martin Clift head of intermediary services & transformation, Barclays

A huge opportunity for brokers –when borrowers need them most

had not tightened sooner, noted that the Bank of England does not “have the benefit of making policy with hindsight.”2 When it comes to advice, neither do brokers. The heavily trailed incoming consumer duty rules put our industry in an unenviable position.

The pace at which mortgage rates have changed recently is making good, timely advice a valuable commodity – the best advice for a client one day might not be so the next. Consider a client needing to remortgage at the end of last year. Rates were volatile and, according to Moneyfacts’ data,1 more than 40 per cent of mortgage products were withdrawn within days for repricing. Fixing for as long as possible before the situation worsened seemed like a very good idea at the time – but the months that followed have been just as changeable.

The volatility that characterised the final quarter of 2022 sent the mortgage market into a spin, the like of which I can’t recall in my career. We are thankfully through the worst of that, but the effects of that unique time mean many more UK borrowers are turning to brokers for expert advice, with IMLA recently forecasting that the share of loans advised by brokers will continue to increase. The past six months have served to make brokers’ jobs unbelievably challenging. I say this with the greatest admiration for intermediaries, who have stepped up to that challenge and saved thousands of worried borrowers from financial distress.

For our own part, like others, we have seen the fallout first-hand. However, since the turn of the year, our volumes have increased, and that’s in part because of the pragmatic way we lend – assigning a manual underwriter to every case allows us to really understand

the unique situation of every borrower. In times like these, flexible criteria and excellent service can be as important as rates. It’s also been interesting to note how well our discounted SVR products have been received alongside our fixed rates. At the moment, as the Bank of England base rate rises, and with swap rates stabilising, the balance between the two product types requires careful consideration of borrowers’ circumstances – a consideration brokers are ideally placed to offer.

It is a huge responsibility and opportunity for brokers – and even more so in the market we have today. With so many options in front of borrowers and many variables that they have not had to consider for a long time, sound advice from a professional who understands the market and knows which lenders can deliver the required solution is invaluable.

Whatever the option, be it fixed, variable, discounted, or remaining on SVR, knowing the market and understanding a borrower’s real needs, as well as listening to what they believe they might require, is critical.

The turbulence we experienced last year has paved the way for advisers to use their skills to ensure their customers are getting the best possible advice. We should not underestimate the responsibility this places on intermediaries’ shoulders. Speaking to the Treasury Select Committee on 9 February, Andrew Bailey, responding to committee chair Harriet Baldwin’s question on why monetary policy

Advisers know only too well that the solution to any borrower’s requirement is unique to that individual. It’s a tightrope, but it’s not unnavigable. Choosing a lender predisposed to working with borrowers to deliver good outcomes for them, even as circumstances change, may be one way to go about it.

Products, criteria, and service all matter more than ever in a market in which quick, helpful decision-making can mean securing the right product at that time. Having a lender on your side who can answer the questions that borrowers will increasingly be asking of their brokers – especially in the case of refinancing existing loans that are coming to the end of their initial terms –will be incredibly important.

A pragmatic approach to underwriting, combined with responsible lending, should mean borrowers can find solutions that are right for them.

Borrowers need reassurance, and we know our broker partners are best placed to offer it. As a building society, we understand the pressure and trust that are put on the shoulders of brokers these days, and we pride ourselves on working to serve them and their clients in the best possible way, when they need it most. M I

References:

1 https://www.theguardian.com/ business/2022/sep/29/mortgages-withdrawnhousing-market-mini-budget-lenderseconomic-uncertainty

2 https://www.ftadviser.com/ investments/2023/02/09/treasury-committeeand-boe-clash-over-inflation-policy/

Michael Conville CCO, Newcastle Building Society

Advisers know only too well that the solution to any borrower’s requirement is unique to that individual. It’s a tightrope

Target operating model no longer a luxury – it’s fundamental

his bets in January, telling the prime minister that it would be tough to get inflation below five per cent, given persistent wage inflation.

the economic outlook was in question made the need for speed when repricing even more critical.

How efficient is your business?

It’s not the easiest thing to quantify, but most business leaders have a good grasp of what’s working well in the mechanics of their operations.

Investment in systems to deliver better, more efficient ways of doing things has never been so buoyant – with good reason.

Lenders cope not only with the changes emanating from the monetary and fiscal decisions of the Bank of England and government respectively, but regulators too are demanding that the way lenders deal with these issues be managed and evidenced properly.

That’s no mean feat when you are endeavouring to deliver an improved target operating model. The goal posts are moving constantly, and current legacy systems are too often simply not up to the job.

In a stable market, it can be harder to assess where the pinch points are, but the market we have been experiencing over the past six months has been anything but stable. The global economy is still very uncertain.

The outlook on inflation in the UK is less than clear. The Bank of England insists it will fall sharply and reach around four per cent by the end of the year. That forecast is based on commodity prices, oil and gas prices, and the cost of shipping returning to more typical, pre-pandemic levels. There are those, however, who believe the Bank of England is underestimating the resilience of high inflation.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt hedged

Despite the market consensus that the Monetary Policy Committee will hold the base rate steady at its next meeting, if inflation does remain stubbornly high, the prospect of further hikes this year is not so unlikely.

There is also the fact that not all cohorts of society are feeling the effects of inflation equally. This is something all lenders will be acutely aware of, and they’re grappling with solutions to ensure fair outcomes for borrowers.

Now rates appear to be stabilising –Moneyfacts’ records show that, overall, two- and five-year fixed-mortgage rates fell for a third consecutive month, with the average five-year fixed resting at 0.24 per cent below the average twoyear equivalent.

For those refinancing, this is reassuring, but the data also shows that the average Standard Variable Rate has kept rising. At 6.84 per cent, it’s now the highest on Moneyfacts’ records since October 2008, when it was 7.01 and the base rate was over five per cent at the start of the year.

The gap between the average twoyear fixed-rate mortgage from two years ago at 2.53 per cent and the current average SV continues to expand, now standing at a difference of 4.31 per cent.

Those in higher-paid jobs may have the capacity to demand more money, but as the public-sector strikes show, there is a real squeeze on household finances among middle-income earners.

There are homeowners in both groups, as well as among workers facing redundancy, forced retirement, and chronic illness.

More than 1.4 million fixed-rate mortgages end this year, and a significant proportion of those will be held by borrowers who may find it hard to remortgage easily.

The latest Moneyfacts UK Mortgage Trends Treasury Report data showed a rise in mortgage product choice in early February, to 4,341 options from 3,643 in January 2023. After the hiatus caused by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget and the market rout it triggered, pricing has been very changeable.

Pressure on funding lines and securitisation appetite at a time when

Interest rate movements, and the subsequent repricing required, have exposed inefficiencies in lender operations, often with serious consequences for treasury departments.

It brings home the vital importance of technology systems, and in particular of the ability and functionality to allow for frequent and fast flex.

It’s another reminder for boards that a target operating model is no longer a luxury investment – it’s a fundamental one.

Particularly in the context of the Financial Conduct Authority’s incoming consumer duty rules, responding to market foibles quickly as well as optimally for the customer will require careful handling.

Documenting that process and the reasoning behind it should already be a priority for lenders, but in four months’ time there will be consequences if delivering on it falls short.

Jerry Mulle MD, Ohpen

Responding to market foibles quickly as well as optimally for the customer will require careful handling

Quality of learning should be a key driver in career choices

their networks will be of superior quality or cover a greater range of learning needs. It’s always worth asking what training is on offer. Let’s take a look at what that should look like.

TRAINING DEVELOPMENT

Irecently read some great advice offered to advisers/companies when choosing a network. It included considering aspects such as sales training, business coaching, and peer development sessions provided by the network.

I’d like to take this a step farther and highlight the importance of learning and development in your career choices. For mortgage advisers, the quality and accessibility of learning and development, as well as a company’s attitude toward it, should be a key consideration when you’re joining a new firm.

Here are a few things to look out for.

DIRECTLY AUTHORISED OR APPOINTED REPRESENTATIVE?

Being directly authorised means the brokerage has the freedom and responsibility to run its business as it chooses. This includes tailoring the development it provides for the needs of its brokers.

Many new or smaller businesses are likely to be appointed representatives (ARs) of larger networks. There are various reasons the principals may have decided to become ARs. Being able to access the network’s suite of learning and development programmes could be one of them.

Both approaches can result in access to a fantastic range of learning opportunities. However, you should not assume that because a firm is directly authorised, its training will always be right for you. Neither should you assume that the training ARs can access through

Whenever you join a new firm, the initial learning support is, of course, highly significant. You want to know that you’ll receive sufficient training on its products, processes, policies, and IT systems. If you have just qualified as a mortgage adviser, you’ll also want to know how you will be supported in achieving competent adviser status (CAS). You should be asking or researching how a company achieves this before agreeing to join it.

Just as important, however, is how the firm supports its advisers once they do know the basics and have achieved CAS. Things to research include:

 whether the firm has an internal programme of development for advisers

 whether it encourages/enables advisers to access third-party learning programmes

 how it ensures advisers are kept up to date on changes

LEARNING CULTURE

What you really want to know here is whether there is a true learning culture. Does the firm provide an environment that encourages every team and individual to learn, and share their learning? Does learning change the way in which the firm and its employees operate? Or is learning provided simply because of the regulatory obligations to do so?

It’s a question of what the attitude to learning is, how accessible it is, and how it is implemented. It is also not purely about formal learning. Asking the right questions will give you clues to a firm’s true culture.

RISK VS REWARD

So why is all this so important? Well, first, the risks attached to insufficient, inappropriate, or unsuitable learning are numerous:

 you may not understand what is expected of you or how to do your job;

 you may be non-compliant with regulatory expectations;

 your knowledge may not be current;

 your skills may not be developed;

 you may miss business opportunities.

Worst of all, there is a significant risk that you may give poor advice to your customers, resulting in potential financial harm to them. Similarly, you may be less likely to identify when your customers are vulnerable or in need of additional support.

Conversely, working in the right environment with access to the right learning tools can have a hugely positive impact on your effectiveness:

 you’ll feel supported;

 you will welcome and embrace change;

 your development will be prioritised, and you’ll be better qualified;

 you’ll be able to offer a wider range of holistic advice and identify better solutions for all your customers;

 you’ll write more business and earn more money;

 you’ll have more credibility and a higher profile within your sector.

Overall, the benefits of joining a company that encourages and enables self-development through both structured and unstructured learning are enormous. Take the time to assess this before choosing your next role. Doing so is likely to make you happier, healthier – and wealthier! M I

Gordon Reid business and development manager, London Institute of Banking & Finance

Lenders and brokers share common goals

traditionally been hampered by onerous early repayment penalties and a lack of flexibility for borrowers.

New, more flexible long-term fixed-rate propositions are already emerging, however, which may trigger meaningful competition in that relatively untapped market.

My sense is that the majority of lenders who had difficultly responding quickly enough to market swings last year are now acutely aware that investment in more flexible systems is a competitive requirement.

Around every seven to 10 years, the economy and markets shift. We’re in the middle of just such a shift right now – the question is, what are you going to do about it?

Before you can even begin to answer this question, it’s necessary to consider where the market was, where it is, and where it’s going.

The same is true for brokers, too –where is the demand going to come from? What will it look like? And where should you focus your time to give your business the best possible opportunity to thrive?

Q4 last year was, for want of a better description, a mess laid squarely at the door of the government’s failed mini budget and consequent merry-go-round in Westminster.

Q1 this year has so far been a period of stabilisation – of sense prevailing once again. For lenders, it has provided a bit of downtime to reflect. Business as usual paused for a moment as rapid repricing became paramount and funding appetite stalled.

Long-term fixed rates may not be everybody’s cup of tea, and are certainly a game-changer for intermediary income models. But long-term fixes do appear to be gaining in popularity among borrowers concerned about a sustained rise in mortgage rates.

Moneyfacts data shows 44 rates fixed over 10 years – not inconsiderable, given that the long-term market has been out of favour.

There is the question of product design for this market, which has

The flipside is whether demand for longer-term rates will be sustained. We have just lived through more than 12 months of unremitting rate rises and significant financial pressure on household budgets.

That level of raised affordability duress is highly unlikely to characterise the next 10 years. Is the demand a product of today’s challenges and a knee-jerk reaction that will fade, or is this the beginning of a product shift that will result in a new slice of market share, ready for the taking?

Product propositions aside, there are also opportunities for service and improved operating models. Product withdrawals and repricing have become more frequent over the past six months, often having a negative impact on lender service levels as the market is forced into a domino effect.

In January and February, funding costs stabilised, reducing the need for rapid repricing – but the experience of November and December is still fresh in brokers’ minds. And the future is far from settled. Pricing has started to go back up again, even as I type.

Lenders unable to respond quickly had a rude awakening when application volumes either swamped underwriting and service departments or resulted in a total dearth of business.

Whether such unpredictable pricing will remain a dominant characteristic in future is beside the point. The episode has served to expose weak spots in some lenders’ processes and their resilience (or lack thereof) in the face of unanticipated change.

Supporting distribution and forging new ties are part of the change, too. When the taps are on and the water pressure consistent, it’s human nature to let things run. In some circumstances the school of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the right way to go. In others, not.

The danger arises when the decision to keep the business strategy unchanged is not reviewed regularly. After all, as we are all aware, markets change. Some of those changes are short-term; others will last.

Maintaining or growing market share in a strong market boils down to pricing – and the biggest lenders, with access to the cheapest funding, win.

In the market that we look to be heading into, pricing will of course be fundamental to competitive advantage. Smaller lenders have had to play on the flexible criteria and higher-risk space, but with tightening affordability and consumer duty requiring lenders to ensure they avoid causing “foreseeable harm,” this becomes a greater challenge.

The opportunity to compete on product innovation – yes, product, not criteria – now looks more fruitful than it has in more than a decade. Borrowers’ needs are changing, and the next two to three years offer lenders the chance to take market share from those competing solely on price. Getting in there early is critical – innovation is almost always driven by smaller, nimbler lenders, and then once a market is safely established, the big boys roll in.

My message amidst all this is that with careful thought, there is a lot of advantage to be gained. Lenders and brokers share common goals, and should not miss this opportunity to thrive. M I

Tim Hague MD, Sagis

Levelling the playing field of workplace equality

Notwithstanding the employment contract between employer and employee, there is also a very real psychological contract in which employees expect fairness in matters that are universally important – financial support, career prospects, training and development, and managerial support.

For many employees, their psychological contract is centred on the relationship they have with their direct line manager.

A breach of the psychological contract by the employer is likely to have significant consequences for people and organisations. It can negatively affect job satisfaction, commitment, performance, and ultimately staff retention.

I have learned that if managers are so focussed on managing upward that they don’t really listen to what people are saying and don’t encourage uncomfortable conversations, allowing a person’s real feelings to be known (and instead expecting the company line to be toed), the environment will inevitably allow anxieties to fester.

A meaningful and supportive dialogue between employees who may be feeling marginalised and their leaders would see issues raised without any fear of reprisal.

Constructive and inclusive discussions enable a progressive way forward to be agreed upon, and meaningful change to be committed to by leadership. However, research continues to show that minority employees, for example, typically do not feel they have such a voice in an organisation.

There has been a significant growth in workplace equality networks. I hear they genuinely provide members with a safe space to share experiences, friendships, and a sense of inclusion – and as the relationships in these groups mature, members help others to navigate their organisations and build effective relationships with management, as well as advising on how to enhance professional capabilities.

It is recognised that these networks can be very valuable in allowing cultural values to be shared and ensuring the lived experiences of minority staff become better understood by all employees, thereby helping to break down barriers and improve company cohesion.

Respecting and embracing cultural differences must come from the top of an organisation. Leaders must be comfortable inviting – and interested in receiving – honest feedback. There are good examples of business leaders actively working with equity groups and promoting wider engagement.

When minority networks raise issues specific to their organisations with board members and develop action plans in partnership, setting targets and committing to monitor progress, it engenders the belief that change is inevitable and inclusivity is not just tokenism. However, where such networks tend to have little power or influence within their organisations and have no real means available to create change in the workplace, that workplace soon starts to feel less safe.

Psychological safety in our workplaces means nobody will ever be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, or concerns, or feel under threat for making a mistake.

Yet I know some black and ethnicminority employees will not feel heard or safe when they approach HR to raise an issue of potential discrimination, for example, by a manager or colleague. Their view is that HR supports the line manager and the business, rather than fully considering the issue from the perspective of the employee, with a view to addressing and taking real action to follow up.

This means repeated, often unconscious, messages that devalue, discourage, and impair workplace performance, conveyed through facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, and choice of words, continue without challenge – leading to instances in which people go to work dreading the consequences.

I read some interesting global research carried out by Future Forum, which found that following the shift to working from home during the pandemic, 97 per cent of black workers said they would prefer to continue remote working or with a hybrid model. When asked if they wanted to return to the workplace full time, only three per cent of black employees said yes, compared to 21 per cent of white workers who said they were eager to get back.

There is evidence to suggest that remote working has provided a safe space that has removed the pressure many black or ethnic minority people feel to conform to systems that have not been created for underrepresented individuals.

As a white male, I often ask myself how the language used by politicians, which then gets inflamed through the media, makes people of colour feel. Without allies beyond those in any employee resource group, workplaces will never be truly safe.

We all have a part to play in levelling the playing field. M I

Pete Gwilliam owner, Virtus Search

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Are lenders really sending brokers to their rivals?

Nicola Firth CEO, Knowledge Bank

I’m not often surprised in the mortgage market. Before anyone mentions my age, let’s just say I’ve spent plenty of years as a broker in the industry, and seen too many changes, innovations, and technological advancements to be caught off-guard. However, as we were developing the requirements for our new lender system, KB PRO, a request from our focus group stopped me in my tracks.

be met. This stops time-wasting, and applications that will inevitably fail later in the application process. This is a huge benefit for the broker, lender, and the borrower, as all brokers know a fast no at least gives them the chance to start re-placing the case immediately.

So far, so good. And then one of the participants in our lender feedback group said, “Is there a way we can see other lenders who would lend on the case, so we could help the broker place the case if we can’t do it?”

This was followed by enthusiastic nodding from the other lenders in the group, who all agreed they’d like to be able to help the broker place a case if they couldn’t do it. It was at that point I cast my mind back to my days as a broker and thought of those BDMs I’d had who had done this for me when I’d had a difficult case that they couldn’t help with. The ability to send a broker and their client to a rival lender was exactly the functionality the lenders wanted built into the new system.

blockers prevent the lender from proceeding with a case, it will show other lenders who can take it up. This will, of course, be particularly relevant and useful for lender BDMs looking to help a broker with a more challenging case.

I think this speaks volumes about the modern relationship between lenders and brokers. I know this isn’t always the case with every lender, but this innovation was driven by a genuine desire from our focus group to have a system in place that would allow them to add value to a broker and turn a failed transaction into a successful relationship.

We were in consultation with lender staff and BDMs regarding a neat little feature we were developing called case builder, which allows lender staff and BDMs to build the case as the broker makes an enquiry, either over the phone or in person.

Results are displayed with any “blockers” that would stop the case progressing as it is, and listing the criteria that would need to be met in order for it to proceed. The benefit of this is that it fast-tracks the new business enquiry process, as brokers can quickly understand whether the outstanding conditions can or cannot

The upshot of our continued discussion was that lenders take their relationships with brokers very seriously, and they understand the pressures brokers are under to place a case. Helping them in this way would add value and build their relationship positively.

One lender cited an example of a hardware shop he was recently in that didn’t have a part he needed, but referred him to a rival shop just a few doors down that was able to help him. He said he left that shop knowing that next time it would, without question, be his first port of call, because if they couldn’t help, they would be kind enough to point him in the right direction. That shop didn’t get a sale –but they won a customer that day.

As a result of this feedback, the lender-based KB PRO system now contains a feature whereby if the

When I was a broker, there was no criteria sourcing. You lived with the frustration of choosing a product in consultation with your client, using criteria based on the last case you placed with that lender or combing through the fine print on a lender’s website. Typically, you would fill out an application form, and only at the point of submission would you discover (to your dismay) that your client sat outside of the lender’s agreed criteria and the application had been rejected. That was it. That was the end of the submission process and interaction with the lender, and you had the embarrassment of going back to a client and effectively starting the process from the very beginning.

Technology is sometimes held up as a panacea for all process ills, and is more often than not cited as removing human contact and interaction, as opposed to adding to it. However, in this case, lenders are taking on the responsibility of helping a broker place a case with a rival, because the relationship is worth more to them than the individual sale.

This is a great step forward for lender and broker relationships, and, by signing up to the new system, lenders are putting their money where their mouths are and investing in the brokers’ customer experience. M I

Lenders take their relationships with brokers very seriously, and they understand the pressures brokers are under to place a case

Boardrooms must understand: new systems change work, data insights change lives

to that decision. Over how long should that return be calculated? When are we going to have to scrap this system and replace it with another all over again?

the building down and start again. I think it’s more nuanced than that.

There is a well-known piece of management advice about how to eat an elephant. The answer, as I’m sure we all know, is that you do it one bite at a time.

But thereafter the advice stops. This can be really unhelpful, because it doesn’t tell you which piece to eat first.

When you are dealing with an elephantsized issue in the operations of a business, broker, or lender, that matters.

Prioritising is important when you are reflecting on big change. Yes, make it incremental – but if you do not get the bits in the right order, then you will still fall short of achieving your goals.

It’s a good way of thinking about how to fit out businesses for the future, particularly when it comes to technology investment.

The list of tech providers promising to deliver bespoke systems and data propositions tailored to your specific needs, delivering optimum user experience to intermediaries, borrowers, and all other parties, is endless.

What’s appropriate for your business aims today is highly unlikely to be appropriate in five years’ time. So the order in which you attempt to solve the problem is important. And that’s the case that chief technology officers are having to make to boards. There is an acceptance that investment is needed –desperately in some cases.

But there’s also the return on that investment that has to be factored in

And often overlooked is the time and energy it takes to train staff and get the buy-in to new systems. If training is costly, or implemented badly or inefficiently, the worst-case scenario can result in a seriously unhappy workforce and a need for cultural change that adds no time or cost to the project.

The result for so many businesses is that these tensions lead to inaction. And the problem that technology investment is seeking to address gets bigger and more complicated – not to mention increasingly expensive.

The key to successful investment in tech – where the return on cost, efficiency, and the bottom line is easily justified – is to create a system that progresses almost by stealth. And that means making the most of interoperability, which is your friend.

All businesses have multiple considerations when it comes to the role of technology: customer service, service delivery, efficiency within the business, supply chain and distribution partnerships, data sourcing, and processing.

Connecting these considerations and maintaining the flexibility to reshape those connections is what interoperability is all about – using the best of what is available in an operating environment that is agile and can accommodate quick change from learning.

Interoperability is most often thought of as IT systems plugging into each other, creating an infrastructure that can evolve without having to tear

Operations is not a business function that refers only to the technology that underpins process; it is fundamentally about how effectively people interact with that process. What’s in it for them? This is where the increase in knowledge through new and better data, together with lending interoperability, really does add value to people’s working lives.

Using technology effectively is fundamental to it delivering on its potential – and that’s what I mean by stealth.

It’s more important to have a lodestone that delivers a coherent infrastructure when a thousand tiny decisions are made over time. These changes – in data sources or data interactions, for example – can give immediate access to insight that can make a real difference for some and that resonates across a business.

New data streams can be easily integrated to improve system performance in such a way that users find the improvements they experience helpful. Change is incremental, almost unnoticeable in the evolution of daily routines, yet hugely empowering in its impact.

From the decision-maker’s perspective, it also makes the investment case much more palatable. Costs are spread consistently over time, smoothing out budget events and thus making the return easier to deliver because the outlay is cheaper.

The loss of efficiency you get with one big change is avoided, adding another financial incentive to the investment case – something boards love. And who can blame them? M I

Mark Blackwell COO, CoreLogic UK

Consumer duty will see increased uptake of technology

Shaun Almond MD, HL Partnership

Networks like HL Partnership that specialise in mortgage and protection channels have shown conclusively that the key to attracting new appointed representative (AR) members and retaining existing ones is to provide a reliable, seamless process for doing business, which includes interaction with lenders and product providers, as well as integrating a level of compliance that helps to embed best practice into recommendations and supporting paperwork.

Of course that doesn’t mean that marketing support and training aren’t equally important – but there is no doubt that being able to adopt a tried and tested technology-led process is making the network proposition more attractive to directly authorised (DA) firms and those dissatisfied ARs who have to put up with systems support that holds them back and leads to inconsistent service to clients.

With consumer duty (CD) coming into force this year, it is clear that the regulator sees technology as crucial to its successful deployment. The FCA has said that it is concerned that firms may struggle to meet the 31 July start date, and has talked about budgetary shortfall and a lack of a technology resource as reasons why some firms will not be CD-ready by the start date.

From its recent pronouncements, the regulator has spoken about the need for all firms to harness data and technology in order to help apply the rules. If ever there were a clear message from the instigator as to how much

the successful implementation of CD will be dependent on technology and the funds to make it happen, these pronouncements say it all.

If firms, especially broker firms, believe that they can employ an analogue solution to CD to save money, they are going to have a rude awakening. The demands of CD are largely to make sure that customers understand what they have signed up for and that it meets their needs in a form that customers find most appropriate to them. Establishing what clients want and recording it, as well as the subsequent recommendation and demonstrating how that meets their needs, works best as part of an automated approach that can be time-stamped.

Going back to the network experience, being part of an organisation that has the size and resources to invest in technology is going to become more and more attractive. The option of going it alone will become less attractive, and the balance between “independence” as a DA and network membership will start to favour the network approach.

Before anyone runs away with the idea that I am biased because I head a network, I believe that choice is the cornerstone of any decent society, and nowhere is that more important than in the relationship a broker firm has with the regulator. The twin-track approach of a choice between either direct authorisation or being part of a directly authorised organisation like a network lets firms decide how they wish to engage with compliance according to the rules set by the regulator.

Back in the 80s, the model was also configured on a dual approach, with an independent option or being an agent tied to an insurance company. Obviously, compliance as we know it today was not something that firms had

to deal with back then. The important issue was one of being independent, to deal with as many providers as you wished, and the ability to state that you were independent meant much more than it does today.

Tied agents were only able to offer the products of their principal, usually an insurance company, and make use of that company’s lender panel. Since then, with the withdrawal of insurers in a post-endowment-policy world and the rise of networks, the twin tracks of DA and AR remain pathways to authorisation.

Finally, with the introduction of CD, the need for investment in technology specifically designed to run a mortgage business can no longer be put off or delayed. In a CD world, the added responsibilities will mean that without the right end-toend technology, keeping up with the necessary reporting in order to show that customer outcomes are being kept in mind at all times is going to be wellnigh impossible.

Networks will have spent a lot of time and money honing their technology to make the most of the upcoming challenges and opportunities that consumer duty will present to their AR members. Sadly, DA firms will have had to self-fund their solutions. M I

Being part of an organisation that has the size and resources to invest in technology is going to become more and more attractive. The option of going it alone will become less attractive

Is consumer duty another nail in the spreadsheet coffin?

There are two words that I hear more than most across the mortgage market at the moment, and those are “consumer duty.” The reason behind this is that we are closing in on the deadline of 31 July 2023, when these rules will come into force for new and existing products or services that are open to sale or renewal, and 31 July 2024 for closed products or services.

January 2023 saw the FCA publish a review of how firms are planning to implement consumer duty, which proved to be something of a mixed bag. While many firms were found to understand and be embracing this directive to establish extensive programmes to comply with the duty, the review also found that other firms were farther behind in their planning.

In its review, the regulator said that some plans suggest firms “may have considered the requirements superficially or are over-confident that their existing policies and processes will be adequate.”

Over the remaining months of the implementation period, the FCA wants firms to particularly focus on: Prioritising: Firms should make sure they are prioritising effectively, with a focus on the areas that will make the biggest impact on outcomes for consumers.

Making the changes needed: The FCA urges firms to ensure they are making the changes needed so consumers receive communications they can understand, products and

services that meet their needs and offer fair value, and they get the customer support they need, when they need it. Working with other firms: Firms need to share information and work closely with their commercial partners to make sure they are all delivering good customer outcomes. The FCA has found that some firms need to accelerate this work to implement the Duty on time.

We know that time is ticking for firms to get the right level of actions and processes in place, meaning the next few months will be crucial to implementing layers of change for many different business types.

The intermediary/lender relationship is a key element in ensuring that advisers have access to the right levels of information and the ability to monitor whether they are delivering good outcomes to customers. In Q4 2022, Smart Money People surveyed brokers for the key areas they believe lenders need to focus on ahead of the consumer duty coming into force to ensure their clients are protected.

The leading broker theme for lenders to concentrate on was communication. Brokers stated that both they and their clients need to be kept up to date with responses offered in a timely manner, and many highlighted the use of jargonfree language.

This chimes with the findings from Smart Money People’s most recent Mortgage Lender Benchmark, which found that lenders miscommunicating changes in product offerings or rates, often giving less than 24 hours’ notice or sending messages outside of business hours, was a key concern for brokers. This has led to brokers and customers alike being unable to assess any impact or make changes, resulting in additional costs and time. Technology can play an integral role

in helping lenders to deliver stronger levels of engagement and a variety of support services. From a consumer duty perspective, it can also take the strain off intermediary firms when it comes to collating relevant information from a compliance and delivery perspective, as well as helping firms to better manage their client records.

I’m now going to move on to a subject that I have talked about a few times before, and I make no excuses for revisiting it in light of the consumer duty countdown: the spreadsheet. Spreadsheets were never really intended to hold client information, and their limitations have become more evident in recent times due to easier access requirements for on-demand.

We know that some brokers still operate with spreadsheets in this form. However, when you outline the benefits of using a system that is safer, faster, more efficient, has greater storage capacity, offers easier access to relevant information for anyone within the business, vastly reduces the need to re-key information, and is still cost-effective, then there are fewer excuses for relying on spreadsheets than ever before.

Consumer duty almost certainly chimes another death knell for the beloved spreadsheet as the main framework for how intermediary firms manage client records. M I

Neal Jannels MD, One Mortgage System (OMS)

Time is ticking for firms to get the right level of actions and processes in place, meaning the next few months will be crucial to implementing layers of change

Take consumer duty seriously when it comes to protection

client and the potential for IHT.

New claims management companies are waiting for an opportunity to capitalise on the rules – and the more obvious, and potentially most rewarding, claims will come from those clients who paid a big IHT bill that basic advice could have helped avoid.

need the same amount of cover, the firm should think carefully about those charges and be in a position to justify the fee. The key driver is the charge, which should be driven by the cost to deliver that advice.

As we are approaching the final few months before the introduction of consumer duty, it is becoming clearer and clearer via our work at Paradigm – and the regulator’s own output – that the changes required of advisers will be far-reaching.

Pretty much every area of the processes employed will need to be looked at forensically to ensure the new rules are being adhered to.

While the process of factfinding, research, and suitability will not change per se, this should not be taken as an indicator that doing no more than firms do at present will be fine.

The implementation cost alone – over £1bn, by the FCA’s own estimates –should indicate the seriousness with which they regard the new rules.

We do now, however, have a better understanding of the four main outcomes and, of course, the crosscutting rules, especially that of avoiding foreseeable harm to retail clients.

That rule in itself could open the floodgates to complaints, and should not be taken lightly when reviewing advice given (or not given) to customers.

Quite rightly, many firms have been initially concentrating on their own areas of business in analysing changes to processes they will employ post-31 July, but firms would be well advised to take a broader view of the rulebook.

Wealth firms that are regulated to give protection advice should be considering it in the area of inheritance tax (IHT), especially where they will be well aware of the assets held by a

In the mortgage arena, firms whose advisers do not give protection advice when they are authorised to do so will be subject to scrutiny, too, by the letter of the rulebook.

At Paradigm we are trying to support DA firms by making information available free on our website, and have recently completed videos on price and value, products and services, consumer understanding, and consumer support –the four core outcomes.

We have tried to give practical examples of how these will manifest themselves in a day-to-day operational environment in the key business areas of wealth, mortgage, and protection.

Networks will no doubt have their plans for implementing changes, as will larger wealth and mortgage firms. Those requiring support most will be small-tomedium-sized DA firms that often have limited capacity to take a helicopter view of their businesses because they are simply too busy.

Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget produced a huge amount of additional work for mortgage advisers at the very time when the regulator was asking them to develop their consumer duty implementation plans. Many will still be reeling from the workload, and may not have been able to dedicate the resources required to looking at the new rules.

But it’s important to bear in mind that outcomes such as price and value will fundamentally affect the way remuneration should work.

If a firm is charging a fee for giving advice on, say, a term assurance for Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones, and they both

If one were a “vanilla” £500k life case, as opposed to a key person or relevant life case that required more work to write, then, in theory, one should attract more remuneration than the other.

In the case of a mortgage, for example, if Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones both need the same size of mortgage, you could charge Mr. Smith more than Ms. Jones if he were taking an offset mortgage where the adviser was building in more reviews for the product, rather than Ms. Jones’ twoyear fixed-rate deal, which may not be reviewed over the course of the term.

In the investment space, if Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones both want to invest the same amount of money, the adviser could charge Ms. Jones more if her money were going into an AIM-listed investment as part of inheritance tax planning, as more time and research would be needed to provide that advice, than they could charge Mr. Smith, who needed a vanilla stocks-and-shares ISA.

Although most of this makes sense to most of us in the field, it does show that in some areas, such as price and value, there are potentially a huge number of connotations regarding how processes may have to change and how the implementation plan needs to look, when and if it becomes scrutinised by the regulator.

The implementation plan itself can be a valuable road map to how a firm will deal with various situations, and, interestingly, some PI insurers are now asking for copies of the plan in their assessment of premiums.

The key messages are: Don’t ignore the implementation, and seek help to get the plans done if you need it. M I

Mike Allison head of protection, Paradigm Mortgage Services

Making it easier for advisers to compare plans

The recent relaunch by Vitality signals a major change in the critical illness market.

Vitality first entered the UK market as PruProtect back in 2007. Its approach was completely different from that of the UK insurers who had been poking around with the same template for twenty years. It arrived with a plan based on that offered in South Africa by Discovery, one that included a far higher number of conditions, albeit most of them not paying 100 per cent of the sum insured.

It also introduced the concept of rewarding policyholders for becoming or remaining healthy and penalising those who failed to do so. Those achieving platinum status saw their premiums fall by 2.25 per cent each year, whilst those with bronze status found premiums increasing by 2.25 per cent. Additionally, a whole range of benefits was offered, such as gym membership discounts.

Advisers were tasked with trying to compare PruProtect/Vitality with the standard plan design offered by the existing insurers. What weight do you apply to a plan that only pays 25 per cent for a stage 1 cancer but includes a wide range of unique conditions, such as pulmonary embolus and detached retina?

Over the past fifteen years, the differences between the Vitality plans and the “standard” plans have diminished. Vitality offered a booster option that ensured that all cancers, heart attacks, and strokes were paid at

100 per cent, whilst the mainstream insurers introduced ever-increasing numbers of additional payment conditions covering less-advanced cancers and many relatively rare conditions. Nonetheless it remained extremely difficult to assess the competing merits of the various designs.

In recent years there has been a push for greater simplicity, and Vitality has recently risen to this challenge by replacing its range of serious illness plans with a far simpler plan design. Their new offering provides three plans called 1X, 2X, and 3X.

The 1X reflects the original plan design, in which the sum insured diminishes by the percentage paid on a claim. Thus, on a £100,000 plan, a claim for a stage 1 cancer would pay 25 per cent, and the remaining plan value would drop to £75,000. The 1X plan only covers those conditions, paying between 25 per cent and 100 per cent.

The 2X and 3X plans are more akin to the typical critical illness plan in that all ABI conditions pay 100 per cent of the sum insured. Additionally, the 2X allows multiple claims up to 200 per cent of the sum insured, and extends cover to those conditions that pay 15 per cent of the insured sum. The 3X is their most comprehensive plan, paying multiple claims up to three times the

sum insured and extending coverage to 174 conditions, ranging from 100 per cent down to five per cent.

However, the push toward simplicity has stalled when it comes to the plan provisions document, which remains a colossal 158 pages and requires the most ardent adviser to spend a good three hours to digest it.

Premium levels and underwriting notwithstanding, it is gratifying to see a more easily understood plan design without the wide range of options and add-ons that previously served to confuse.

CIExpert has now included both the current and previous Vitality plans on its comparison site, and this will make life far easier for those advisers looking to compare these disparate plans. CIExpert has been advocating the merits of grouping conditions to further simplify understanding for advisers and clients so that the relative merits of different plans can be more readily understood.

AIG took a lead on this approach, and we expect others will follow. CIExpert uses this approach in its comparative system so that the assessments include all the conditions that are unique to Vitality and yet can still be easily compared against CIC plans, thereby ensuring that consumer duty reviews are truly comprehensive. M I

Alan Lakey director, CIExpert

A joint mortgage doesn’t mean joint life cover

 A policy for each person pays out twice should both lives end or claim.

 Modern CI plans differ according to gender, so we shouldn’t assume the same insurer is best for both lives.

ECONOMIC ABUSE

Getting on the property ladder has become a bigger priority than getting married for many in the UK. A recent survey found that 51 per cent believe the contract of mortgage paperwork is more binding and displays more commitment than a marriage certificate.

It is no surprise, then, that the number of couples who are living together but not married is rising. According to ONS census data from 2021, more than a third (37 per cent) of all couples aged 45 or under are cohabiting. If you include those aged up to 65, the figure is 26.2 per cent, up from 18.5 per cent in 2001.

Not all these couples own their own homes; many will start out renting or living with parents. However, there are about 15 million homeowners in the UK, and about seven million of these have mortgages. Given the growing numbers of unmarried couples living together, it’s fair to assume a significant proportion of these seven million mortgages will be between cohabitees.

GETTING THE RIGHT PROTECTION

Buying a home is often one of the main drivers for taking out life cover. While a joint life insurance policy could be the answer, and is often assumed to be best practice, there are well-known drawbacks.

One joint life plan is usually a bit cheaper than taking two single life plans (and arguably a bit easier, too), but that’s not the full picture:

 Two single plans offer far greater individual flexibility.

 Likewise, the amount of cover and how long it is needed may need to vary.

 It is easier to put single life plans in trust.

Then we have disclosure – situations in which one person doesn’t know something about the other, and the case suddenly goes quiet, because the partner concealing something doesn’t want the other one to know. Think of it this way: What if you told the truth, but the other person didn’t?

And what if they split up? When relationships end, they tend not to end nicely.

A decade ago, I heard about a couple in the middle of a bitter divorce – not speaking, expensive lawyers, family arguments. One member of the couple was far older than the other and was in seriously ill health. The two had a very large joint life policy.

Who owned that policy? Where would the money go when a claim was paid? How many thousands would be spent on lawyers trying to argue the case?

What about a situation in which the person paying the premium – the same person who deals with all the paperwork – stops paying those premiums without telling his or her partner?

I heard about another case recently in which a couple had taken a joint policy. They broke up a few years later, and the person paying the premiums now has a child with a new partner. So where would the money from the policy go –to the premium-payer’s ex-partner he hasn’t seen for five years?

Joint life policies are also a rising source of domestic economic abuse. There are situations in which an abusive person has taken joint life insurance without the person’s partner knowing. They intimidate the partner by saying they look forward to benefitting from the policy when the person dies.

Advising unmarried customers about single life policies and trusts should be a top priority, but the latest report from Swiss Re reveals it isn’t happening enough. It shows there is a huge gap between the number of single policies being taken out and the number that are in trust. They calculate a minimum of 84 per cent of single life term policies were not written in trust, with a significant proportion relating to unmarried couples.

While the increase in non-advised life term sales is accounting for some of the gap, there is clearly much more that advisers could be doing to encourage greater uptake of trusts. With consumer duty placing much greater emphasis on both providers and advisers to do all they can to protect customers and their families, we need to do better. M I

Kevin Carr Protection Review CEO & MD, Carr Consulting & Communications

Tackling the big squeeze

your highly valued customers whilst providing you with a regular income.

Geoff Hall chairman, Berkeley Alexander

According to new figures from the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA), regulatory costs for brokers are now 40 per cent higher than in 2019. Add to this high inflation, a hard market, and the additional expectations resulting from the cost-of-living crisis, and it appears a profitability shock may be brewing.

Cultivating your current customer base through wise upselling and cross-selling will perhaps offer the truest opportunity to drive efficient and sustainable long-term success in the current environment.

OVER HALF OF YOUR COMMERCIAL CLIENTS ARE LIKELY TO BE UNDERINSURED

According to Aviva’s third annual Risk Insights Report (released at the end of January 2023), 50 per cent of UK businesses are likely to be underinsured, and just over a fifth (21 per cent) have reduced or considered reducing their insurance cover in the previous 12 months. This prompted Aviva’s chief executive to warn that the threat of underinsurance has now reached a critical point.

stars), because criminals can easily track their movements and know when a property is likely to be unattended. These high-profile individuals are also often seen wearing expensive jewellery and watches, and we have seen examples where a burglary has happened even with the occupants at home.

For these people, their social media presence is a vital component of their work, but they need support to ensure they can reduce the risks posed by unscrupulous individuals willing to take advantage of this weak spot – and brokers have a key role to play here.

One way to help is to maximise your existing client base, and GI income forms an important element of that. Anyone running their own business knows that selling to existing customers will invariably be more successful, and it’s more cost-effective, too. It costs more to acquire new customers than it does to expand revenue from existing ones.

All of your clients are buying general insurance, and many will have investment properties or be connected to a commercial business – so why let them talk to another broker about those policies? Ringfence your clients and leverage your existing relationships whilst helping clients to find the right cover for their needs.

If you don’t want to advise on these policies yourself, referrals to a GI provider enhance the opportunity to support

With SMEs making up 99 per cent of all businesses in the UK, the insurance industry is doing them a disservice if we fail to respond. As brokers, whether directly authorised (DA) or appointed representatives (ARs), you are in prime position to help them. With many UK businesses already finding out their existing cover is inadequate, the urgency to respond, and to do so quickly, is growing exponentially.

Many of you may not have the expertise or inclination to advise on commercial insurance. Referrals to a GI provider enhance the opportunity to reach more underinsured customers with a wide range of policies and take advantage of the provider’s strong relationships with major insurers.

HIGH NET WORTH IN THE SPOTLIGHT

A recent story about an ex-Love Islander’s burglary has reawakened the debate over high-net-worth (HNW) underinsurance and social-media risks. In recent years there has been a slew of high-profile burglaries (from footballers to celebrities, and now even reality

An industry commentator, in a recent article from a leading insurance trade publication, suggested that HNW cover could be seen as “too generous,” meaning the premiums are underpriced, and that “the cover is too good.” However, it is the job of the insurer to suitably price the policy cover they provide, taking into account the risk factors and frequency and size of claims, while it’s the broker’s job to assist the client in finding the policy that meets their individual demands and needs. As we are seeing now across many lines of business, insurers will increase premiums when required to keep pace with claims.

Also, HNW is very much about insuring the individual’s lifestyle, not just the brick and mortar. As well, they are usually cash-rich but timepoor, and need the peace of mind of knowing that when a claim is made it will be dealt with quickly and efficiently. There is potential for inadequate insurance of every aspect of a HNW individual’s lifestyle – from properties and cars to jewellery, art, and designer goods – and brokers must always be mindful of this. As inflation rises and the insurance cost of goods and valuables increases significantly, it is good practice to speak to your clients and check that their sums insured are still appropriate. This is part of the collaborative service HNW clients expect. M I

All of your clients are buying general insurance ... ringfence your clients and leverage your existing relationships whilst helping [them] to find the right cover

Choosing the right conveyancing partner

of the proceedings.

Conveyancers play an essential role throughout the property transaction process. A conveyancing firm will oversee the legal requirements of buying or selling a property, processing relevant contracts, supporting the arrangement of the payments process, and ensuring that necessary rules and regulations are followed.

Clients often look to their intermediary to recommend a conveyancing firm to guide them through the transaction process. Indeed, according to Smoove’s Home Movers Report, just over a fifth (21 per cent) of movers find their conveyancing firm through their mortgage broker.

Assisted by an intelligent online comparison portal, intermediaries can recommend a conveyancing partner who can be trusted to deliver high-quality service and with whom they ideally benefit from a close professional relationship. This can enable intermediaries to improve the client’s experience, win repeat business, and ultimately boost their bottom lines.

When partnering with a conveyancing firm, intermediaries should consider whether the potential partner possesses the necessary resources to dispel some of the inherent complexity of the transaction process. A conveyancer who can clearly explain legal terminology in straightforward terms can help to alleviate a primary source of uncertainty and stress for clients and dramatically improve their experience

Intermediaries would also benefit from clear communication around the conveyancing process. When supported by a close working relationship with their partner firm, a thorough understanding of conveyancing work can enable the broker to remain fully engaged at each transaction stage. This better equips intermediaries to help resolve issues if necessary and continue cultivating a positive client experience.

Selecting a partner firm that can offer transparent and frequent communication throughout the process is also important for ensuring the timely completion of the transaction and client satisfaction. Recent research has revealed that industry professionals note the relationship between communication and the efficiency of a transaction.

The Conveyancing Association reported last year that 48 per cent of conveyancers believe communication via lender portals would speed up the post-mortgage offer process. Innovative technological solutions can be a useful tool in this regard. Products like eConveyancer’s DigitalMove provide a centralised digital platform where movers and conveyancers can collaborate freely, and offer real-time updates that enable stakeholders to track cases precisely.

An effective customer experience team can also help to ensure that both the intermediary and client are able to receive support quickly when needed. Of course, clear communication is complemented by a strong working relationship between partners, which allows for closer collaboration, a more streamlined transaction, and consistently met deadlines.

In the current market, partnering with a conveyancing firm that communicates about cost is also increasingly important.

According to the Home Movers Report, 42 per cent of movers view cost as the most important consideration when choosing a conveyancer. This factor is even more important in today’s challenging property market, with many buyers facing strong economic headwinds and higher mortgage rates than in recent years.

Indeed, conveyancing costs have also been rising, with research by Property Solvers recently revealing that average conveyancing fees for house purchases have increased by eight per cent since early 2022. Leasehold sales and purchases have been affected even further, with conveyancing costs growing by 22.6 per cent and 38.24 per cent respectively over the same period.

Certain online portals can support clients in finding the best deal for their specific circumstances. By providing a transparent quotation, clients can also budget appropriately, while avoiding any hidden costs.

By using a comprehensive and transparent online portal, intermediaries can identify a conveyancing partner capable of providing the exceptional client service that can help them to secure business in the future and enhance their bottom lines.

Recommending a quality conveyancing firm that can break down the complexity of the transaction, ensure a streamlined process, and communicate with clients on cost can improve client satisfaction and enhance the reputation of the intermediary.

Ultimately, partnering with a conveyancing firm that can meet these high standards would be complemented by a strong relationship between the intermediary and conveyancer, allowing for a more collaborative and streamlined transaction. M I

Karen Rodrigues director of sales, eConveyancer

A PEOPLE BUSINESS

Given the shockwaves that ran through the mortgage industry just a few months ago, one might expect the chief executive of Stonebridge Group to be a little subdued. But Rob Clifford is animated and pragmatic – indeed, upbeat – about how the market will perform this year.

“As a network, we’re well-capitalised; there’s no question about our financial viability,” he reasons. “It certainly hurt us, in terms of our profitability in 2022, that the market took a nosedive back in the autumn, but we’re not worrying about survival or indeed, growing. We will continue to grow.

“But individual mortgage broker firms I care about. They may have seen their business halve back then, maybe drop even more than half due to a big income gap. I know some very successful mortgage brokers both inside Stonebridge and elsewhere for whom this means they moved from making a profit to facing a loss because of the market shift. And, while there has been an improvement, it’s still likely to be a very tricky first six months of the year. But we must always bear in mind – and I said this to our member firms recently – that this is still a very vibrant, busy mortgage market in the UK.”

He continues, “Housing transactions were still likely to have been north of one million in 2022, so this is not a market crashing. I don’t think it’s disastrous. I think it’s a reset. I think, in 2024, you’ll see 1.1 million housing transactions, in 2025 you’ll see 1.2 million, back to – let’s call it the norm. I think we’ve a tough 2023, but good mortgage brokers will prosper and will survive. Some firms won’t survive, and that’s very sad, but for the market at large it’s still a very interesting mortgage market.”

Clifford is, meanwhile, critical of those lenders who don’t pay procuration fees for product transfers at the same level as they pay for new business – and suggests they could do more to help intermediaries.

“Some lenders are even-handed, in my view, and do pay a full procuration fee for a product transfer that

The mortgage market remains vibrant, according to the CEO of Stonebridge Group, one of the UK’s largest independent mortgage and protection networks. People are at the heart of it, Rob Clifford tells Simon Meadows

“Create and nurture business relationships. Whatever company or sector I’ve worked in, it’s largely about relationships”

Rob Clifford

the broker advises on and arranges,” he remarks. “I think that’s absolutely the right thing to do and the honourable thing to do. If the broker is performing all of that work in service of protecting his consumer, the lender should pay – and yet in the market today, more than half of product transfers do not attract a full procuration fee for the work done, and that feels unfair to me. I think if lenders really wanted to help the intermediary market survive and prosper, they would reconsider why they aren’t paying a full procuration fee on product transfer business.”

HELPING THEMSELVES

Clifford is clear that brokers can help themselves, too.

“What many mortgage brokers forget to do or run out of time to do in a busy market is promote the benefits of impartial advice and promote the fact you can arrange your mortgage, offering wide consumer choice and ancillary products like protection products,” he points out.

“It’s bizarre, isn’t it, that so many people take on the biggest amount of debt of their entire lives in getting a mortgage and don’t protect against loss of income? Thank goodness consumer duty and the FCA focus on this now. I think brokers have got an enormously important job to do to keep reiterating the importance of protection products alongside a mortgage and maintaining client relationships.

“You might be staggered to learn how many mortgage brokers – hundreds of mortgage brokers across the UK, hundreds of firms – fail to keep in sufficient contact with existing or historic clients. Some advisers fail to communicate adequately with that client base; they fail to keep a relationship and enhance the relationship with customers they dealt with this year and last year. So I think it’s critical at the moment that those mortgage-advice firms have a communication strategy and get as close as they can to as many of their existing clients or historic clients as they possibly can.”

Clifford clearly enjoys interacting with others. It was a key reason he was first attracted to the mortgage world.

“It was a people business,” he states. “It was never my career ambition to go to work in a sector called financial services. It was quite obvious to me that

I wanted to be in a job that allowed me to talk to people. I’m not a logistician. I’m not an accountant. I’ve had a sales and marketing and business development interest all of my life.

“I learned pretty early on that those were my strong points. I was agnostic about being in an office or out meeting people, to be honest – but it was quite important to me that there be customer engagement or people engagement.

“I would say that was the most powerful appeal at the very start of my career. I’m not polishing a halo, but people quite liked the fact that their mortgage adviser would help them with their mortgage needs. Very often they had a dream house, and you were helping make that dream become the reality by arranging the finance.”

Aside from having a natural affinity for people, Clifford’s career was something of a chance happening.

“Certainly 30 years ago, I didn’t meet many people who set out to work in financial services, and neither did I,” he says. “It was as simple as getting a parttime job as an A-level student in a firm doing some telephone work, which was warmer than some of my mates collecting trolleys in Sainsbury’s. I was in a nice, warm office that happened to be in a mortgage-broking business.

“As an 18- or 19-year-old, of course, I knew nothing about an industry called financial services, and nothing about mortgage intermediation. By accident, I found myself working for a mortgage-broking business – and the rest is history, really, because that led to me being hired full-time as a proper employee, doing a proper job.”

Accident it may have been, but Clifford revealed an entrepreneurial streak early on, setting up his own brokerage at the age of just 22, working with builders and arranging new-build mortgages. A further startup, a franchised mortgage-broking business, followed, and there was a stint running Virgin Money.

“I had a very working-class upbringing,” he reflects. “We had no business ownership in our family. We certainly didn’t have much wealth at all. So setting up a business and then selling a business and building another business and selling that business – the pattern of my entrepreneurial career is by luck, accident, and hard work.

“I’ve certainly had a history of doing 50- to 60hour working weeks, whether I’ve been working for someone else or working for myself. I think that is the way you’re wired – you’re driven by something, and you rarely switch off.”

He adds, “I wouldn’t say I’m a massive risk-taker. I wouldn’t say I’m the entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. I think I take calculated risks. I relentlessly pursue a strategy, so I surround myself with brilliant people, as all leaders should. I build businesses in a pretty safe fashion. I’ve been very fortunate or skilful, I guess, in finding trade buyers or finding firms that would want to invest in or acquire the thing.”

In 2015, SDL Group invested in Stonebridge, and Clifford joined the board. It had been founded in 1988 by Richard Adams, who took a step back to spend time with his family due to ill health (sadly, he died in 2021).

Clifford became CEO in 2019, with SDL having already assumed full ownership of the business. Stonebridge has grown from around 300 advisers to 1,080 today; the business provides them with technology, business development, and compliance support to ensure all regulatory requirements are met. Stonebridge has its own, wholly owned software, Revolution, which includes tools and systems

designed to free up an adviser’s time to focus on giving mortgage advice.

“We arrange 75,000 mortgages a year, over £11bn pounds’ worth,” Clifford enthuses. “We had 300 advisers join the network last year, and increased our employee headcount by 36 people in 2022 –that’s about 20 per cent more people in our central operation, which is quite a substantial additional investment in people.

“We now have mortgage advisers across 570 firms. I don’t want to golden-handcuff people; I don’t want to lock people into Stonebridge. I want them to value the services we offer, regard the commercials as fair – but, crucially, I ask, am I helping them be more efficient, helping them create productivity gains, helping them have the best tech in the market, to give better service to their consumers? If I’m doing all those things, they’ll never leave.”

He adds, “We are a B2B service. We are not their employer; they don’t report to us. They’re independent, privately owned businesses run by committed people with an entrepreneurial streak – some of whom have no employees, some of whom have 40 employees – and we’re there to support them. They don’t need to adopt my culture or adopt my brand.

“The fact that they’re disparate and they’re spread

right across the UK is the way this model works. They are local businesses that are very proud of the way they operate in their local market.”

RELATIONSHIPS

The chief executive of Stonebridge reflects on what the best business lesson of his career has been.

“Create and nurture business relationships,” he says. “Whatever company or sector I’ve worked in, it’s largely about relationships. Product, proposition, pricing, resources, and capital are all important components when running businesses, but growth and prosperity generally rely upon relationships. That’s both with your people – it’s not just about benefits or fancy offices, it’s how you treat them – and with corporate partners like lenders, insurers, and tech providers. Some of my relationships go back 25 years, and we are still leveraging them. Plus, there are relationships with end customers and the personal service you give them. People buy from people – that’s not changed in my entire career, despite disintermediation, remote fulfilment, and advancements in technology.”

While his work is important to him, Clifford also relishes his life outside of the mortgage industry.

“My son and I are season ticket holders at Derby County, so we rarely miss a home game at Pride Park – which makes the heart sing and sometimes the blood boil,” he says. “I like to play tennis when the weather makes it pleasant, and play squash quite regularly. Live music and, in particular, going to the theatre are my main escapes. I’m a keen skier and am lucky to have been to the Alps or farther afield at least once every winter for most of my adult life – I love it. Travel generally is a real hobby – it tends to be Europe and the USA and Canada, but I’m yet to get bored of taking a plane to just about anywhere with a warmer climate than here.

“I’ve spent a chunk of every year since about 1998 in Cornwall, as I love long weekends by the Atlantic, or working from there with the benefit of the sea air and coastal walks after the laptop lid closes. When I retire, I would like to walk more of the South West coast path around the whole of Cornwall, spending more time with family and playing racquet sports, spending an entire ski season alongside the pistes.

Far more travel is definitely on the agenda, probably seeing more of the East and other continents, after having generally travelled West across the globe until now.”

Yet, despite his decades in the industry, Clifford quite clearly remains hugely engaged with the mortgage world and is keen to achieve more.

“Our ambition is not waning,” he affirms. “But I think it will be tough for us to continue our excellent rate of adviser growth this year, and we’ll have to pedal harder in a tougher market to maintain our growth rate in accordance with that ambition. We will continue to invest substantially in technology and to increase the number of advisers who are part of the Stonebridge family. Crucially, this needs to continue to be a great place to work for our people.” M I

“Good mortgage brokers will prosper and will survive … for the market at large, it’s still a very interesting mortgage market”

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS

eople are living longer, are healthier, and are working into later life,” declares Leon Diamond, founder and chief executive officer of LiveMore Capital. “It’s about enjoying life; life just continues as it does. Yet a lot of firms that have set up in the over-50s market, whether brokers or lenders, all they focus on is equity release, selling it first, second, and third. And that’s where we see the big difference.”

As a dedicated later-life lender, LiveMore offers mortgages for those over 50, and Diamond is clear that the inspiration for his business owes much to the older relatives he admired in his native Australia.

“Both my parents and grandparents worked past the retirement age and had their own businesses,” he remembers. “My grandfather on my mother’s side I was very close to. He had a pretty tough life – lived through World War Two, established a life in Australia, and continued to work until he died. He had a shoe repair shop, liked the zest of life of just wanting to continue to work. He shut up shop on Friday, intending to come back in on Monday, and died on the Saturday, aged 87.

“My parents and grandparents struggled to get

financial products later in life because they had their own businesses and were in their 70s or 80s. That was most probably where I got the respect and understanding that just because you’re older than 67 or 68, it doesn’t mean that you have to retire and pull up stumps. That is a stereotypical view of retirement that I think a lot of younger people have and a lot of younger marketers paint in this later-life space.”

AN UNDERSERVED MARKET

LiveMore describes itself as offering the widest range of fixed rates in its market. Recently rebranded, it has launched a repayment capitaland-interest mortgage, the first of its mortgages not to be interest-only. There are two-, five-, and 10-year fixed-rate options with loan terms from five up to 35 years and a maximum LTV of 85 per cent. It’s a response to what Diamond views as an underserved market.

“Through research, we do see that in your 50s and moving into your retirement age, people are struggling to get a mortgage, especially with highstreet lenders,” he reflects. “There are constraints, and the alternative is just equity release – and that

When Leon Diamond launched later-life lender LiveMore Capital, he wanted to do things differently, offering more than simple equity release. With his older relatives as inspiration, he’s done just that, as he tells Simon Meadows

doesn’t suit some borrowers, if not most. A lot of people who are in the age demographic have built up some equity in their homes. They may not want to draw down all of their pension pot to pay off their house. North of 40 per cent of our borrowers are interest-only borrowers who have come to term end and are looking to extend and are being underserved by banks. So we are able to extend them and keep them in their homes; otherwise, they would be faced with drawing down their pension pot, which may also have taken a hit because of equity-market or fixed-income volatility.”

Diamond continues, “Quite often, customers are on their third or fourth broker before they find one who can give them the correct advice that will allow them to get a mortgage. We did a survey of 2,000 people, and only two per cent between 80 and 90 years old thought that they could get a mortgage. There’s an education process at the consumer level, but there’s also an education process at the broker level. A lot of firms that have set up in the over-50s market are just equity-release firms. So, whether that’s a broker or the lender, all they focus on is equity release.

“One of the things that we’re tasked with doing in 2023, as a business, is continuing to educate the broker and consumer world of the various forms of products in the marketplace.”

LiveMore was established in 2018, the brainchild of entrepreneur Diamond, who has worked for 24 years in finance in Australia, the United States, and the UK.

“I was quite good at maths, and after university I was an equity options trader, so I moved into finance pretty young, in my 20s, and worked in fund management for a number of years,” he explains. “I would sit there in front of computer screens and model numbers. With my wife’s business, which was a consumer-facing, eco-friendly drinks

business, you really got to see the impact of having a great consumer outcome. I really wanted to be customer-centric.”

SEEKING TO INSPIRE

The tone was set with the development of the brand image – it sought to inspire.

“With the name LiveMore, I wanted something positive, something uplifting and not condescending,” Diamond enthuses. “My take on a lot of the later-life lenders today is that when you look at some of the advertisements and some of the campaigns and some of the terminology, it doesn’t do the consumer

“I’ve never been a mortgage broker and I never worked for a mortgage lender, and I think some of that has allowed me to break down the barriers”

Leon Diamond

justice. Quite often, these people have paid taxes, gone through seven or eight prime ministers, lived through different economic climates, and yet can’t get a mortgage. So I wanted something to be a tribute to them, being in their 50s and 60s and looking forward to the years ahead. We try hard not to have

what I see as often quite patronising marketing.

“What I wanted when I set up this business was the ability to solve not only customers’ issues, but also the backend issues when we sell these mortgages. I wanted LiveMore to be a problemsolver rather than a product-pusher. So the vision is to be a platform of choice so that when a customer comes to us, we’re able to provide a solution, not push one product. To date, we have a retirement, interest-only mortgage; a term interest-only mortgage; a capital-and-interest mortgage; and we are soon launching into equity release.”

He explains further, “The way we see it is we are the later-life lending specialist. What we understand is someone’s entire assets, which are complex, especially going into retirement or post-retirement. We’ve built an affordability model that looks at someone’s entire asset base and works out whether they can afford a particular type of mortgage. We really want to do right by the customer, and then everything else will follow – the products, the engineering, the mortgages. And the creditability will follow, as long as we’re doing right by our customers.”

Does LiveMore have a typical type of customer?

“No, and this is one of the challenges we have,” reasons Diamond. “Our oldest borrower was a 92-year-old lady who purchased her house. People age at a different pace, but someone typically who’s 50 is in a different space to 70. What I will say is our average customer is someone aged 67 who is quite often under the impression that they can’t get a mortgage, and who quite often has been rejected for a mortgage by the high-street banks. We do anything from plain vanilla mortgages all the way through to debt consolidation, gifting, and inheritance and tax planning. Some people are gifting £2m out of their houses to their children and grandchildren.

“If we look at the over-50s lending market today, it’s a market worth about £29bn. Of that, about £5bn is equity release. So equity release is sitting at less than 20 per cent [of the potential market]. But what we see is the opportunity to actually grow that £29bn – and now more than ever given the current economic climate, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and stress in the market around employment. We see demand in our age demographic increasing, whether it’s people helping themselves or their children

“We’ve got some great customers today, where we have been able to help keep them in their homes, and that’s really motivating”

or grandchildren through what are clearly tougher economic times now and for the foreseeable future.”

BROKER RELATIONSHIPS

How important is the relationship with brokers, would Diamond say?

“Very,” he replies with certainty. “We’ve done some broker testing in terms of how we communicate with brokers – just simplified communication, fewer acronyms and more webinars. We’ve found some really strong engagement on that side – making our underwriters accessible, continuing to build on that customer service. We manually underwrite, but use technology to help us be efficient, and our underwriters communicate with our mortgage brokers to build strong relationships.

“A number of tech lenders have moved into the space and struggled to really scale. They’re looking to innovate, yet there are still some areas that need to be respected. The broker world needs to be respected in distribution because it does the majority of distribution within the UK market.”

LiveMore is introducing new technology this year that will aim to provide a broker with an alternative option should an application be turned down. “So, actually, rather than being totally rejected for a mortgage, we’re constantly providing a solution,” Diamond says,”really trying to help the broker be as efficient as possible so they don’t need to rekey a case.”

STRONG MANAGEMENT

With high scores on Trust Pilot and the accolade of Later Life Lender of the Year at the Mortgage Introducer Awards, LiveMore holds a confident position in the marketplace.

“We’re now at a stage where we’ve got a really strong management team with deep mortgage experience – much more experience than me,” offers Diamond. “I’ve never been a mortgage broker and I never worked for a mortgage lender, and I think some of that has allowed me to break down the barriers, which I love. Whilst I’m relatively new in the mortgage market, I have people who have 20–30 years in the mortgage market surrounding me.”

He adds, “We’ve got some great customers today, where we have been able to help keep them in their homes, and that’s really motivating. For me,

one of the enjoyments I get out of this business is seeing the consumer outcome. Later-life lending was all equity release two years ago, and we’re leading the charge that it’s not just equity release. It’s mainstream mortgages as well. It’s about fitting a solution for the customer, not a product.”

The founder of LiveMore remains positive about how the market is evolving.

“With the Financial Conduct Authority’s consumer duty coming into play, we see that as being a gamechanger in the later-life market,” he asserts, “in terms of holistic advice that encompasses mortgages and equity release. You need to assess someone’s income and ability to pay a mortgage, rather than just taking equity out of a home. So that wave is coming with a lot of the larger players. I think it’s a bit of a wake-up call, so we’re really excited about this space.”

Diamond is still only in his mid-forties, but given that the demographic of his customers is older, does he ever look ahead and envisage his own later years?

“I think my wife and the people around me would say I’m a bit of an old soul,” he considers. “I want to stay active, I plan to not ever fully retire. I see myself as being active in the world of earning income, more from a mental aspect of not wanting to stop. So I really understand our borrowers who are working longer in various jobs and for various incomes. It resonates with me.” M I

Leon was inspired by his older relatives

FULL ACCESS

Karl Wilkinson is clearly a glass-half-full kind of guy. The CEO of Access Financial Services sees plenty to be optimistic about – and opportunities for those who work harder

The market might be tough, but that means working smarter, according to Karl Wilkinson, founder and CEO of Access Financial Services.

The expanding mortgage firm has 160 brokers on its books, and is still growing. Having weathered previous economic difficulty, Wilkinson sees no reason to be downbeat.

“Yes, there’s a lot going on,” he concedes. “I say to my brokers – and I survived the crash of 2008 – you might have to do a little bit more work, but there is still business out there; there is always business to be had. You’ve just got to work that little bit harder to achieve it. A lot of mortgage brokers haven’t really slowed down that much. They’re just fighting that little bit harder and being a little bit more proactive.”

Wilkinson continues, “Whereas, before, they might have seen ten customers to get two deals across the line, they’ve now got to see 15 or 20. So just work harder and don’t give up – that’s exactly what I did in 2008. I’ve got brokers who do networking events, so they’ll just sign up to another networking event.

“You can filter out customers a lot quicker. You can almost feel within an initial conversation, no, that’s not going to work. You earn a lot more respect with the customer by telling them earlier on, no, you can’t buy that property, rather than dragging it on for two or three weeks while you’re trying to phone every single lender or you’re trying to work out whether that deal can be placed.”

He adds, “In line with working smart, we can actually help brokers free up more of their time to go out and find business by using our in-house administration services – that actually frees up about 70 to 80 per cent of their time. So we

support our people in various ways, to help them get more business.”

RAPPORT

Wilkinson didn’t become a broker until his early thirties. He initially owned a restaurant in Wales –his signature dish was Fillet Rossini, a fillet steak served with a rich gravy, made using pâté. He served pop-star customers like Victoria Beckham and Stereophonics, but the anti-social hours didn’t fit well with family life, so he looked to the mortgage industry instead.

“I think being in the restaurant industry helped a lot because you had to generate a rapport with so many different types of people,” he reflects. “Being in a service industry, I think those skills

Karl Wilkinson

passed to me as a mortgage broker, and after being a mortgage broker for maybe 12 years or so, and a very successful one, I decided to grow a team and see what support I could give to other people in the industry.”

Buying up an established business from a broker who was retiring, Wilkinson launched Access Financial Services in 2017. The brokerage has gone from strength to strength, swelling its adviser numbers.

“It’s not selfless,” he acknowledges. “Obviously, the more money they earn, the more rewards there are for Access, which we can put back into the business to support more brokers. I don’t have a Ferrari sitting in my driveway; I like to reinvest everything back into the company. Despite what’s going on with the economic climate, our turnover’s still increasing month on month. We’ve doubled our turnover for the past three years.”

Wilkinson points to a high retention rate of brokers. Many of them are of different ethnicities, which, he says, helps Access build trust with communities it might not otherwise reach. He is keen to nurture talent within the industry and has established an academy proposition.

“Over the years of the growth of Access, we’ve looked at different ways and different strategies through which we can help these brokers just

grow,” he explains. “I have had brokers come from employed positions in banks, and they’ve proven to be very successful, earning six-figure sums within the first 12 months and growing above and beyond that, so there’s a lot of people who have actually been extremely successful with the support that we give.

“It’s all about the culture of the business, and it’s almost like this sort of family connection with everybody. Everybody’s there to help each other out. We’re not in competition with each other. Every single broker will support every single other broker, without a doubt. Everybody loves to help, and that’s a great thing about it. I’ve got brokers who just take calls from other brokers saying, ‘Oh, how did you do that?’ or ‘How did you find this?’ or ‘I’m thinking of doing this, I know you’ve done it before. How did it work for you?’ That internal support structure and that core are really what we’re all about.”

The business was previously based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, but since COVID its team has worked remotely, with quarterly face-to-face team meetings.

“A lot of the growth that we had was during that time, so we’ve actually made the decision to stay remote,” Wilkinson shares. “The advantage of that is that it’s helped us massively, from a head-office perspective, to recruit good people from all over the UK.”

With sixteen years in the mortgage business under his belt, Wilkinson is clear about the advice he would offer another broker when dealing with clients:

“From a sales perspective, don’t push; don’t be desperate,” he says simply. “If you want to close a mortgage deal or a protection case, don’t come across like you’re desperate to close it. Just give them the information, help them decide – and if they want it, they’ll take it.”

He works fifteen-hour days, but when he does step away from the business, the CEO of Access Financial Services enjoys playing golf and spending time with his family. Despite his success so far, he remains ambitious.

“My plan for the future of Access is to get up to 800 advisers and really try to disrupt the market with how we do things,” Wilkinson declares, “with the culture, with the support. We’ve got a good reputation with lenders and providers, so I want every single broker to know who we are.” M I

Wilkinson with his family

Beyond the deal

urges them to think ahead, to help lenders prevent future litigation

B“rokers perform a really important function, but some can be tunnel-visioned and see a deal as the be-all and end-all of their responsibility,” says Jonathan Newman, senior managing partner of Brightstone Law, a legal practice based in Elstree, Hertfordshire, which specialises in banking and finance.

“In their heads, their function starts and stops with introducing the loan and collecting their fee. Sometimes they don’t look at the potential long-term risks to them. It’s really important for brokers to do that, for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of lenders to make sure that they’re fully up to speed with regulation. It will help prevent them being dragged into disputes and contested litigation. They need to be very transparent with what they do.”

Newman focuses on property finance litigation and is an expert in mortgage fraud and complex banking recovery actions.

“We don’t act for borrowers, so we’re totally focused on mortgage lenders; from small family offices all the way up to challenger banks.”

He continues, “We’re there to make sure that a client’s lending is compliant with the regulations and that the asset’s security is consistent with the valuation that the lender has got. We are there, too, to collect if there is a default with repayments.

“You’re typically looking at people borrowing money over a short period. D-Day comes around in 12 months, as opposed to 25 years, so, if there are issues with the property or there are issues with the repayments, they tend to arrive a lot earlier than they will do in the traditional market.

“We understand the law business. But more than that, we understand our clients’ business. We understand what the lender

wants and expects and we deliver really strong commercial advice.”

RECORD KEEPING

“What we are seeing now is brokers being far more integral to the collection piece than they ever were,” he notes. “Even if they’re not a party to that litigation, they’re going to be called to give witness evidence. In most cases, that will only happen if they haven’t acted professionally, so issues around secret commission or unfair credit inevitably involve brokers.

“My job as a litigation lawyer is not to have trials and not to involve people in wasting time in witness boxes, and to prevent brokers being dragged into spurious claims from borrowers. The way I can deal with that and what helps me to do that is for the brokers to be diligent in their record keeping. They need to have very strong documentation.”

“Bridging is probably 75 per cent of our work,” he explains. “When I first qualified, many, many years ago, you only took bridging finance if you absolutely had to do so. The bridging loan section of the mortgage industry has grown exponentially over the last few years, and there are some pretty large players in the market.

“The rates have come down and it’s a very competitive market. Lenders tend to be very commercial, very process-savvy, and customers know that they can access money quickly.”

In spite of the UK’s economic pressures, Newman remains remarkably chipper about the current market.

“The appetite for money hasn’t gone away,” he declares. “It has probably increased, post-COVID, with borrowers playing catch up for a year-and-a-half of doing very little. They are not getting the solutions they want within the mainstream mortgage

market. So there’s more people coming to the bridging market, and we had our best year ever in 2021–22, which is astonishing.

“The short-term lending community is ravenous to do the lending – within the right parameters and sensibly. So I would say that the market is extremely buoyant in the short-term finance industry, and it’s showing no signs of letting go. I believe it’s a really positive year for the market.”

Newman says he opted for law over being an accountant, doctor, or dentist when he was at school. With over thirty years in the legal profession, he clearly thrives on in his role and shows no signs of calling it a day.

“People ask me if I am going to retire, but no, I absolutely love what I do,” he reflects. “I’m very much at the coalface dealing with matters. Every day there’s a different challenge and every day there’s a new experience. What I really enjoy is problems being placed on my desk and finding solutions for them. I love delivering results for my clients, I’m passionate about the cases and that’s what drives me - the passion. M I

Securing mortgage business is a rewarding moment for brokers, but lawyer Jonathan Newman

Jonathan Newman

Punching above their weight

about the uses of housing equity as part of retirement planning discussions.

Donna Wells director, Envelop

If you were to ask 10 different brokers from different regions across the UK about their experience of 2023 so far, I would be intrigued to hear their answers. Of course, there are always many variables attached to such a question. It might simply boil down to the type of day they are having, the latest case to come across their desk, or whether they operate largely in a certain marketplace.

From our perspective, when taking into account widespread talk of a housing market lull and a fall in activity levels, Q1 2023 has been a period that has punched above its weight across a few different sectors of the market – and, without showing my hand too much, some of those areas may (or may not) be highlighted in this piece.

SECOND-CHARGE

First, let’s focus on a second-charge market that is benefitting from greater numbers of homeowners looking to improve their properties and realising the advantages of such a facility for a variety of purposes, including as a viable alternative to a “standard” remortgage. And this is a sector that is primed to become even more prominent in Q2 and beyond.

This was evident in recent data from Together, which found that the number of customers opting for second-charge mortgages to fund renovation costs jumped by 10 per cent between 2018 and 2022. While more than two million homeowners are planning to improve their properties this year rather than move house, one in seven (15 per cent) said they didn’t know how much they would need to spend. The research also

revealed that just under half (43 per cent) of UK adults were unaware they could release equity in their homes by taking a second-charge mortgage to fund renovation costs or assist with debt.

That final element of this research is a telling one, as it highlights the vast potential on offer to advisers who are able to educate an array of clients on the diverse aspects of the secondcharge sector and the beneficial options available to them – especially to those who may have been looking to improve rather than move in the wake of some lingering housing market uncertainty.

LATER-LIFE LENDING

Uncertainty is also rife amongst those at the more advanced end of the lending spectrum. The later-life lending market has undergone significant growth in recent years, with demand set to increase further as the importance attached to housing equity rises in line with squeezed retirement incomes – so much so that, due to rising inflationary pressure, retirees hoping to achieve a basic standard of living in retirement may need to increase their expenditure by 18 per cent year-on-year.

Recent data from Air Club suggests that nearly one in ten people who planned to retire are having to delay their plans due to the cost-of-living crisis. With that mind, and recalling that for a significant number of people, their homes are their largest assets, advisers are being urged to ensure they are talking

Since the end of the default retirement age in 2011, Air outlined that it had seen a steady increase in the number of older employees, with ONS data suggesting that there are 1.4 million over-65s in full-time employment. Some people in this demographic who wish to remain in work, however, will find it difficult due to challenges such as ill health or caring responsibilities. Others will delay retirement or return to a job that they may struggle with as the rising cost of living continues to place a real strain on their finances.

This represents a significant issue across the UK, and shines a light on the value of a good, professional advice process in sourcing a variety of solutions that may help such people borrow flexibly and responsibly, now and in the future.

BUY-TO-LET

Traversing to the buy-to-let sector, after a tough Q4 2022, it’s been great to see increased competition emerging, especially at the more complex end of the market, with affordability and loan sizes bouncing back.

This is according to analysis from Mortgage Broker Tools (MBT), which showed that in November 2022, buyto-let affordability fell to its lowest level on record, with 19 per cent of enquiries failing to find one lender able to provide the loan size requested.

However, recent weeks have seen lenders cut rates and offer more achievable stress-testing levels. Consequently, in January 2023, only 10 per cent of buy-to-let enquiries were deemed to be unaffordable. MBT also reported receiving a record number of monthly buy-to-let mortgage enquiries.

There is no doubt that challenges remain for landlords, but it’s a real positive to see more viable solutions and options emerging, with specialist lenders driving the BTL market forward into Q2 and beyond. M I

When taking into account widespread talk of a housing market lull and a fall in activity levels, Q1 2023 has been a period that has punched above its weight across a few different sectors of the market

Educate about the benefits of second-charge

Maeve Ward director of commercial operations, Central Trust

As adults, it is easy for us to forget about learning when we have long completed our formal education, whether secondary, higher, or further education. But continuing to learn is crucial, particularly for our work lives, as the world is rapidly changing, and keeping up with new technologies, processes, and regulations is essential.

But many adults overlook the value of continuing education. Some may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of taking on additional educational commitments while juggling work and personal responsibilities. Others may not see the immediate benefits of investing time and resources in learning.

Of course, continuous professional development (CPD) is a vital component of lifelong learning, and enables professionals to stay up to date with the latest industry trends and best practices so that they can best serve their customers.

The cost of ignoring the importance of education can be significant. As new technologies and industry regulations continue to emerge, workers may find it difficult to keep up with these changes, to the potential detriment of their customers. Professionals who do not take advantage of CPD opportunities may find themselves at a disadvantage, particularly when competing for business.

It is thus essential for adults to prioritise continuing education, including CPD, as a key aspect of their professional development. It can provide many benefits that go beyond

the short-term investment of time and resources, enabling individuals to remain competitive in their fields and achieve their long-term career goals.

GAP IN KNOWLEDGE?

The 2016 Mortgage Credit Directive mandated that brokers should consider second-charge mortgages as an alternative to remortgaging in any capital-raising scenario. Many brokers are still not considering this option, however.

Thousands of people are experiencing pressure from increased monthly repayments, whether from mortgages, unsecured borrowing, or credit cards, as a result of changes in their economic circumstances.

I’m therefore slightly bewildered by the most recent data from the Finance & Leasing Association which showed that in December 2022, the second-charge market reported its first monthly fall in new business since March 2021.

The distribution by purpose of loan in December showed 58 per cent of new agreements were for the consolidation of existing loans, 14 per cent were for home improvements, and a further 22 per cent were for both loan consolidation and home improvements. (I’m not surprised by the demand for seconds for debt consolidation.)

My conclusion is that some brokers are simply not comfortable providing second-charge advice, primarily due to a lack of knowledge about secondcharges, the available lenders, their criteria, and the overall application process. This gap in knowledge points to a need for better education in the intermediary sector.

Customers may not even know a second-charge is a viable alternative to a remortgage. Educating both brokers and consumers about the benefits of a second-charge may thus be crucial

in the coming years as more people struggle with debt.

Brokers should focus on providing the best customer outcome, which may mean considering a secondcharge alongside the remortgage as a viable alternative in any capitalraising situation. It may well be that a remortgage is available, but just because it is doesn’t necessarily mean it is the right choice. It depends on the customer’s needs now and in the future.

It’s inevitable that mortgage brokers will see more clients who have capitalraising requirements struggling with their finances over the next 12 months. Whilst there are mortgage products available, the issue in the mainstream market is acceptance. If second-charges are not considered an option, the cost could be far greater to the broker in the longer term. Ultimately, borrowers’ needs don’t fall away simply because a remortgage isn’t available or isn’t the right outcome right now; these borrowers will find via the internet an intermediary who will consider a second charge. The best brokers will revisit the ancillary sales to ensure that same borrower has adequate protection, as well as making a note to revisit that borrower when the time is right or it is possible to remortgage.

Brokers must also understand the risks associated with looking at different financial solutions in isolation, and instead take a holistic approach.

With that in mind, Central Trust is holding educational academies in March to help brokers understand how different forms of specialist finance, such as second-charges, can provide solutions for a range of customers. These events will help brokers improve their understanding of the specialist lending market and learn how to successfully place cases – and they will count toward CPD qualification as well. M I

Have we reached peak compliance yet?

Tony Marshall CEO, Equifinance

The fear of God is once again upon us, this time in the form of the consumer duty rules, set to be in place by July 2023.

Well, it appears that way, at least, given the number of emails I receive trying to sell me the services of support companies that swear they can get me to the promised land with relative ease – for a fee, of course!

We all remember the millennium bug, mortgage regulation, treating customers fairly, MCD, and GDPR –but I have a theory that it’s the same people moving from feast to feast.

So, is it the fear of God, or simply enforcing good business practice?

The rules and regulations surrounding this are not too disconcerting, though documenting our responses to it might be. We, as regulated businesses, must act to deliver good outcomes for our customers. But what self-respecting business wouldn’t want this as an outcome if they want to grow a profitable, long-term, sustainable business?

Yes, innovation sometimes gets carried away with itself, and we have seen businesses profiteer on crests of waves where a product gap can quickly turn into a bubble.

Look at the following candidates, and tell me that not one of them became a monster.

1. Endowments

2. PPI

3. High-cost short-term credit

4. Guarantor loans

Going back to consumer duty, the cross-cutting rules also appear to be quite sensible, too:

1. Act in good faith.

2. Avoid causing foreseeable harm.

3. Enable and support retail customers in pursuing their financial objectives.

have a market.

After all, we only have to look at the Sinclair C5 as an example here; selling ice to Eskimos might be another. Here’s the thing, though: as businesses, we will need to temper our fervour regarding pricing by looking at the value of the product against the price charged. That sort of plays a bit with supply and demand, but let’s wait and see.

And, of course, we must supply adequate information about our solutions to both our distributors and customers, and support them throughout our relationship. Fine by me.

No problem here, save that we can only do what we can do. That said, customers may not see the potential harm that their financial objectives may create for them, and I am not here to play God or attempt to take away their freedom of choice.

However, I certainly have no intentions of creating and distributing products that may be detrimental to clients. Rather, at the forefront of my mind, along with those of most other right-thinking businesses and individuals, is the motivation to create solutions that benefit consumer groups at a price that is reasonable for the risk involved.

Of course, what we can’t do, as businesses, is provide solutions that cost more to supply than the price paid. I’m not sure that our employees would thank us for that in the long term!

Thankfully, we are still able, as businesses, to create products that are targeted at cohorts of customers, and to identify those customers at whom they are not targeted. Nothing new here. There is no point in creating a product that doesn’t

One question here, though: Who, I wonder, will pay for all of the project managers, data analysts, compliance staff, managers, team leaders, and support companies required simply to prove that most of us are not in the business of intentionally disadvantaging our customers?

After all the compliance initiatives that the industry has had to absorb in the past five or ten years, I am surprised that consumers are not yet, in the opinion of the regulator, being protected enough. Equally, there is no doubt that one of the winners here has been the compliance support industry; consumer duty is going to be a veritable fruit machine of opportunity for them.

The introduction of consumer duty will represent a new high-water mark in increasing compliance complexity for those without in-house compliance support, and that will lead to a greater need for outside experts to explain and create processes for firms to follow.

Don’t get me wrong – they do a great job, especially for brokers, who will struggle to fit new rules into their processes without expert assistance. However, one question comes to mind: Have we reached peak compliance yet? M I

Consumer duty will represent a new high-water mark in increasing compliance complexity for those without in-house compliance support

Technology can ease the stress of consolidating debt

redundancy, and having children.

Matt Meecham chief digital officer, Evolution Money

Those in debt may tend to shy away from confronting the problem or put off the inevitable task of seeking advice. Recent research from Experian, however, revealed that searches for debt-consolidation products in its marketplace rose 29 per cent year-on-year in January. This accounted for the largest share of product searches during the month –ahead of home and car loans.

Many such borrowers might be homeowners who are unaware of how a second-charge mortgage could help consolidate their debt and reduce their monthly payments. It’s not only crucial that borrowers be informed of their options when speaking to an adviser, but, if and when they do reach the application stage, that they be met with a smooth, efficient, and speedy process – which is where technology can help.

Experian’s research shows that while month-on-month interest in debt consolidation products rose most sharply among those in their 50s, people in their 30s still account for the largest proportion of debt consolidation loan searches overall, at 21 per cent. This age demographic will almost certainly be tech-savvy and have a certain level of expectation when it comes to their mortgage lender and adviser.

The mortgage and homebuying markets don’t have the best track record when it comes to creating a stress-free process for borrowers. Buying a house was ranked as one of the most stressful life events in a survey last year – beating divorce,

The report from platform Stipendium found 85 per cent of homebuyers experienced some degree of stress when moving house, with 27 per cent experiencing the process as “very stressful.” In fact, it was so stressful that 14 per cent said it made an existing mental health condition worse. A further 12 per cent said it caused their mental health to deteriorate. Some of the reasons cited in the findings were being unable to contact those in the homebuying chain to receive an update, and the time it takes to buy a property.

The mortgage and second-charge markets have the tools to help take away some of this stress. Digital verification, e-signatures, and online status updates are just a few of the ways that technology can help speed up the process and keep the borrower informed.

Easy-to-navigate tools, such as apps, provide the borrower with an element of control over the transaction, helping them keep up-to-date and informed. For debt-consolidation borrowers in particular, solutions such as open banking can help provide advisers and lenders with a clearer insight into a borrower’s finances, potentially widening the number of products available to them.

For second-charge lenders like us, the use of our Evolution Money app and open banking allows for the automation of a borrower’s income and affordability assessment, which helps speed up the application process. This not only reduces the amount of time borrowers have to wait for their funds, but it also improves communication and simplifies the entire process.

The second-charge industry, in particular, is making great strides when it comes to completion times. The average completion time in January fell to 14.42 days, according to the Loans

Warehouse Secured Loan Index. This is almost five days faster than for the same month in 2022.

In February, the average time from referral to completion for Evolution Money app customers was just 10 days, and for getting the pack back, only seven days.

In 2022 the number of second-charge mortgage loan agreements reached its highest annual volume since 2008, according to the latest figures from the Finance & Leasing Association. In December alone, 58 per cent of new agreements were for the consolidation of existing loans, with 14 per cent for home improvements and a further 22 per cent for both loan consolidation and home improvements.

Given the rise in debt consolidation enquiries, we need to make sure such borrowers are not deterred from seeking help because they feel uneasy or frustrated with the application process.

As an industry, we all have a role to play in changing perceptions about the mortgage process and the anxiety it can engender. Technology is key to delivering the best client outcomes and for those who find themselves in debt and looking to consolidate; a technology-led lender can help take some of the stress out of that process. M I

References:

https://www.experianplc.com/media/latestnews/2023/savvy-brits-consolidate-theirborrowing-to-ease-the-squeeze/

https://www.stipendium.io/in-the-press/ buying-a-house-is-more-stressful-thancovid-divorce-and-driving-tests-hereswhy.aspx

https://www.project-insights.co.uk/ securedloanindex/january-2023

https://www.fla.org.uk/media/news/secondcharge-mortgage-new-business-volumes-fellby-3-in/

Property prices headed for a dip – but what’s the wider view?

Andrea Rozario COO, Bower

Ithink there will be a trend this year – monthly checking in on the health of the property market and consistent threats and panics that a crash is approaching. Will it occur? I have no crystal ball, and neither do the doomsayers, but I think some context is needed.

2023 has started rather bumpily for house prices across the country. In fact, in the year to February, prices saw the biggest dip in a decade. Moreover, Nationwide reports that this was the first annual drop – aside from a slight blip mid-pandemic – since November of 2012.

Sounds ominous, right? Well, let’s dig a little deeper. This drop represents a 1.1 per cent fall throughout the country. Now, obviously, that is less than ideal, especially for those who have only just scrimped and saved enough to get on the ladder – like my own son. However, this 1.1 per cent dip is happening in a landscape of historic and steady price rises over the last ten years or so.

As mentioned above, not since November 2012 have we seen an annual drop like this – and I think there are two ways of reading this. The first is pure panic, and I’m sure we will see a fair share of that in certain tabloids. The second, and the one I predictably favour, is more measured. If this drop is the first in a decade, does that not prove that property is a great long-term investment? I think we all know the answer here.

I have no idea whether property prices will dive lower or rebound

healthily, but history teaches us that the latter is a frequent occurrence. Even back in the financial crisis of 2008, property prices certainly did fall – in fact, far more sharply than they are now – but they also rebounded relatively quickly.

Property prices were actually falling just before the crisis truly kicked off, with summer 2007 marking the beginning of a steep decline that peaked around February 2009, with annual house price decline at 15.6 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The same data shows that as of March ’09, an equally steep recovery had begun, and annual growth nearly matched pre-crash figures by April of 2010. And that’s to say nothing of the comparison between the current decline of around one per cent and the ‘08 crash of more than 15 per cent across the nation. 2008–2009 really was a different beast from what we are facing today, and yet the property market still rallied relatively quickly.

Obviously I am not saying that those years were easy; they were horrendous for almost everybody. However, it is important to look at things with a level head. Property is a sturdy investment, and one that most of us will hold for a very long time – if not for life if we are lucky enough. So, taking a quick oneor even two-year snapshot is almost always unhelpful. In that shot you can capture a rapid decline or even a massive growth spurt, but neither is useful to understanding the bigger picture.

For the mortgage market, high interest rates and tumbling prices are obviously a bad thing. But what I am saying is that it won’t last forever. This year and perhaps into next will surely be tumultuous, but the history of property prices in the United Kingdom teaches us to remain patient.

Ultimately, clients looking for a mortgage, and even more so looking for a lifetime mortgage, may be getting a little twitchy. And this is totally understandable. Our job as advisers and experts is to pass on our wisdom and explain the flexibility and features our products offer.

For example, the No Negative Equity Guarantee, a cornerstone of equityrelease for years, will be a well-known feature for most clients – but we need to hammer it home. It will always be a topic of conversation between an adviser and client, even more so when the property market is going in reverse. Explaining this simply and clearly will thus be vital, as will the newer features and customer safeguards such as the right to make penalty-free repayments, launched last year. This too will add to the feeling of safety, support, and longevity all customers will be searching for in this difficult period.

Every client or potential client will be different, but when they see their biggest and best investment going in the wrong direction, they will all need the knowledge and power to make the decision that will help them toward the lives they deserve. This is our task for 2023. M I

Keep learning

Stuart Wilson chairman, Air Club

However long we’ve worked in financial services, or indeed in the later-life lending space, I’m of the opinion that you never stop learning – nor, indeed, should you ever stop wanting to learn.

Thankfully, I come across people all the time who have this commitment not just to lifelong learning but also to trying to keep as up to date as possible with everything that is happening in a sector that is notoriously difficult to keep pace with.

A couple of points come to mind in this vein, both raised at our recent Breakfast with Stuart meetings – which, I might add, are open to anyone with an interest in the later-life lending market, and always benefit from different experiences and insight. Advert over.

First is something that seems slightly trivial but could make a considerable difference (and impact) in terms of customer engagement.

We were discussing customer-facing guides on later-life lending/equity release, etc., and I know that many firms use these, or indeed have their own. And what is generally the image that is on the cover of such guides?

Well, you might think, quite naturally, that they tend to be photos of people of a certain age, certainly well into retirement (although it was also pointed out that some guides show people well below 30, which seems odd, but there you go).

One discussion point raised was around whether this was the imagery that works best when it comes to customer engagement. It was suggested that many older people do not see themselves as their actual age, and they don’t necessarily place themselves in

the shoes of people who appear to them to be far older.

There’s also the “You’re only as old as you feel” aspect to this – and I, for one, certainly don’t feel anywhere near the age I am, nor have I (to be honest) ever felt like my age. It’s all relative, of course, but maybe there’s a good reason why some guides use younger people on the front, and we perhaps need to remember that our products are available to people starting at age 55.

But it’s just as relevant when it comes to product changes or criteria, or the latest technology to aid you, or the latest thinking in terms of client vulnerability or benefits – you name it.

Essentially, it is about keeping engaged and not assuming that, just because you’ve been doing this job for a long time, you necessarily know everything – because nobody does or can.

To my mind, I tend to believe that about 10 per cent of later-life advisers turn up for events, for example, or are fully engaged with what is available from the regulators/ trade bodies/Air, when it comes to consumer duty and other topics.

Now, this either means the other 90 per cent are already working at the peak of their powers, are allknowing, and have no need to attend or engage, or it means that many are choosing to keep their heads in the sand and are not where they need to be – or indeed, where their clients need them to be.

That in itself could be something of a lesson in terms of gaining a better understanding of our target market and demographic. Indeed, you might want to tailor the guides you hand out to later-life clients based on what they plan to do with the money, not what they might look like to you.

My second point comes back to constantly learning on the job, and was, again, mentioned at the meeting – in a way, we were perhaps preaching to the converted. But I know this article goes far wider than that, and so this is about adviser engagement across all manner of issues and changes that are affecting the sector.

Our specific conversation was about consumer duty and the raft of events currently being held, and the need for the entire advisory community to engage with these in order to learn what is required and how this might be brought into a specific business.

Of course, I’m aware of the job itself and the pressures that come with it – but those pressures can be eased by, for example, engaging with the support and resources available, keeping up to date with market changes, networking with your peer group, joining a trade body, etc.

All that will give you a much better chance of maintaining your competency and also provide the best outcomes to clients, and in a year when the consumer duty looms large, help you ensure you meet the responsibilities that come with it.

No-one can be on top of everything, everywhere, all at once – they should make a film called that! – but they can be near the top, and always pushing to get there. Keep taking those steps and moving forward, keep engaged and learning, and you’ll be in a much better position individually and collectively – and so will our sector. M I

I tend to believe that about 10% of later-life advisers turn up for events ... or are fully engaged with what is available from the regulators/trade bodies/Air, when it comes to consumer duty and other topics

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