As it currently stands, there is nothing to stop a directly authorised broker from using multiple mortgage clubs. In fact brokers used to be well known for following the best rate or highest proc fee from club to club. So is that still the case?
A number of brokers that I speak to say they stay with a club, not because they are the best, not because they offer the lowest rates or the widest mortgage range; not even because they offer the best additional benefits, but because of complacency. Their details and FCA number are saved in the mortgage club system; the club knows them and it’s all just easier than going somewhere else. But is that really a reason to stay?
If the pandemic has taught us one thing it’s that we need to be able to adapt and change in order to survive. We are not talking change for change’s sake, but change because if we do, it offers us something better and makes us more fit for the future.
Sometimes it takes something like a pandemic for us to achieve the shift necessary to change our working practices. It’s been widely touted that it would have taken ten to twenty years to get the majority of businesses to accept that their staff could work equally well from home, if the change hadn’t been forced on us overnight last March.
That technological shift is just one reason we should continue to evaluate our businesses and our providers. It is no longer just millennials who expect to be able to interact with us online and get an instant or near instant response, it is now the majority. Just look at how we like to deal as brokers as an example. We want to be able to find rates, products and criteria instantly, we don’t want to be hanging on the phone to a mortgage desk. We want to apply for mortgages online and receive a near instant decision in principle so that we can update our clients while we are still with them.
What lenders expect from brokers is also changing. They want to know that we have properly analysed our clients’ income and outgoings, that we have conducted the anti-money laundering and credit checks to ensure that whatever client we submit an application for is a legitimate person who can afford their mortgage, and almost all of these things now need to be carried out using technology, something unimaginable even five years ago.
And things aren’t stopping there, the pace of change will continue to accelerate, so we need to ask ourselves: Are we moving with the times? And if you’re a broker who has been using a mortgage club, or any other supplier, for some time, is it for the right reasons? Is that club enabling you to work in the best way for you and your clients, or could you be getting more and providing more?
It’s time to make sure that you are getting what you need, not only for now, but to make sure your business will thrive, whatever ups and downs we may be faced with next.
