Brokers have given Halifax the highest bank satisfaction ratings, according to data from Smart Money People.
The financial services website’s twice-a-year Mortgage Lender Benchmark said this institution was the best to deal with among banking lenders.
The survey, published today, covers feedback from 597 brokers on 44 lenders across banks, building societies, specialist lenders and lifetime providers.
Skipton Building Society topped the poll as the best building society, Godiva won out as the best buy-to-let lender.
Pepper Money grabbed the top spot as best specialist lender, while Canada Life was rated best lifetime lender.
Lenders who scored highly among brokers did so due to “the speed and ease of the application process,” said the report.
While lenders were marked down for “poorer customer service and underwriting”.
Overall, the benchmark found broker satisfaction with mortgage lenders increased by 2.5% to 80.3% since the poll was last carried out in December.
However, satisfaction levels among brokers has not yet recovered to the peak seen in the first half of 2020 of 82.70%, which shows that sentiment is below pre-pandemic levels.
The report has been published six times since the second half of 2018.
Smart Money People chief executive Jacqueline Dewey says: “The improvements in overall satisfaction in the first half of 2021 represent an increase up to an industry average of 80.3%, having dropped by 4.9%, an all-time low, from our last report in the second half of 2020.
“This increase is encouraging and shows that the mortgage industry is now recovering from the effects of the pandemic.
“Lenders now seem to be comfortable with new working patterns and are better placed to cope with the incredibly high demand we’ve seen during the pandemic.
“However, broker sentiment is not yet back to pre-pandemic levels and the results show that there is still more work that lenders can do to improve the broker experience.
“The next six months will be interesting to watch and see what happens to broker satisfaction, as we see lenders return to offices and adapt to a more permanent state of hybrid working.”
