The Nottingham has joined forces with broker Mortgage Advice Bureau and property firm Belvoir Group in a deal that will see the mutual sell mortgages on the Beehive Money app to a younger “digital-first audience”, when it launches later this year.

As part of the move, the building society will sell its Nottingham Mortgage Services unit to AIM-listed Belvoir Group.

Belvoir Group said it acquired Nottingham Mortgage Services for £600,000 in cash from existing cash resources, in a stock market announcement today. It added the agreement between the three firms would last for ten years.

Nottingham Mortgage Services reported revenue of £1.7m and operating profit of £255,000, in the year to December 2020, the statement added.

The deal is expected to complete on 31 July 2021.

The unit provides tailored advice and searches thousands of mortgages from multiple lenders.

Belvoir Group is a property franchise with six distinct brands, specialising in residential lettings, property sales and property-related financial services.

The Nottingham says the best strategy to extend its mortgage and protection advice “was to partner with a market leader that could extend this proposition to a digital-first audience”.

It says its Nottingham Mortgage Services unit will be run in conjunction with Belvoir and MAB. It adds MAB already uses “advanced digital tools to provide digitally-led mortgage advice, supported by over 1,500 advisers across the UK”.

MAB, also AIM-listed, says its brokers also offer advice face-to-face and over the phone, and handles over £16bn of loans a year.

The mutual, founded in 1849, says 27 staff from Nottingham Mortgage Services, including mortgage advisers and other roles, “will move over to Belvoir and continue to serve Nottingham branches and members as they do today but as representatives of MAB”.

It says all other affected roles will be being supported, with redeployment options available across the building society, adding there will be no compulsory redundancies.

The move extends the mutual’s alliance with Belvoir who took over the provision of all estate agency and lettings services across The Nottingham’s branch network in 2020.

The building society says its members can continue to use its mortgage services through its branch network and over the phone.

The Nottingham chief executive David Marlow says: “Our new partnership with Mortgage Advice Bureau and Belvoir is a natural next step and an exciting development that allows us to extend and grow this service to our digital-first members who will be using the Beehive Money app, when it launches later this year.

“With us welcoming over 50,000 18-39-year-old Lifetime ISA savers, we know there’s a strong appetite for this and we already have a strong cohort of future first-time buyers looking to take their first step on the property ladder. We’re delighted that this unique approach between a building society and a mortgage network will make the home-buying dream a reality for a new generation of members.”

Marlow adds: “The evolution of our mortgage proposition and our ambition to provide this digitally, as well as face to face, is further progression in our reinvention journey and reflects our ongoing aim of serving our members with products and services that are relevant to them as individuals and deliver value to them in the most effective and efficient way possible.”

Mortgage Advice Bureau chief executive Peter Brodnicki says: “The society is a modern, mutual organisation with a long legacy of doing the right thing by its members and it’s great to know that with this partnership, we will have the opportunity to provide digital-led, in-app mortgage and protection advice, through our experienced advisers who will be helping tens of thousands achieve their home buying goals.”

Belvoir Group chief executive Dorian Gonsalves adds” “We’re delighted to extend our partnership with The Nottingham and enable the continuation of mortgage and protection advice to the Society’s members and to new members in the Beehive Money app through our team of MAB advisers.

“Our strategic alliance is embedding really well across the network for estate agency and together we can help people not only find their new home but fund it also with the right mortgage for them.”

The Nottingham launched an online savings account called Beehive Money in December 2018.