This means you have another two weeks to prepare your entry and write an account of all the great things you have been doing to deserve recognition.

We are accepting entries from mortgage lenders and suppliers to the industry. All you need to do is select the award or awards you wish to enter and send in a written submission of no more than 800 words explaining why you think you should win.

The categories cover various aspects of the industry from innovation to customer experience to community involvement.

This year is very different to others as we all face the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lenders’ workloads and priorities have changed so you might want to consider what you have done to tackle the coronavirus situation for the good of customers, clients, colleagues, partners and the mortgage industry.

Of course, there is still other activity within the mortgage industry and over the past year firms have been working hard.

The Mortgage Finance Gazette Annual Awards recognise the achievements of lenders and suppliers and the positive and innovative things you have been doing.

You can see more information about the categories and criteria below. But first, here’s how you can enter:

How to enter the Mortgage Finance Gazette Awards

It is free to enter the Mortgage Finance Gazette Awards. All you have to do is email your entry explaining why you think you should win the award or awards you are interested in.

In your nomination please provide the following information:

• Award category
• Name, email and phone number of person sending in the entry
• In one sentence give a company overview including size of the organisation, e.g. asset size, number of employees
• As an introduction, one or two sentences describing the crux of your nomination
• Nomination entry in more detail – 800 words maximum – to include: – What have you done over the past 12 months to support your entry in this category? – What difference has this made to your business/customers/community, etc? – Why should you win?

A one page appendix may be submitted (if you wish) for photos, press coverage, testimonials, etc.

Getting your nominations to us

Email your nomination to: [email protected]

If anyone wants any more information on the awards please feel free to email the publisher Dan Miller at [email protected]

You can also see more detailed descriptions of last year’s winners and highly commended organisations by clicking here.

Closing date is Sunday 27 September 2020.

Information to help you prepare your entry

If you missed our original call for entries, here is a full rundown of the categories and criteria for entering along with the lowdown on last year’s winners to give you some inspiration…

The categories include innovation, community service, corporate social responsibility, customer service, best use of arrears management, best use of technology, best anti-fraud service as well as legal and conveyancing categories, best loan servicer and best surveyor.

From an individual perspective there is the Leadership Award for a stalwart within the industry who is at the forefront of business; the Individual Achievement Award for anyone within the sector who goes beyond the call of duty; and the Lifetime Achievement Award for someone who has had an outstanding career.

Lenders

The MFG Awards are open to all lenders – large, medium and small – and the categories are divided into smaller and larger lenders at the judging stage.

Traditional banks and building societies are welcome and we would also like to hear from specialist lenders, including equity release, buy-to-let, second charge, new lenders, challenger banks and any other niche player.

Non-lenders

But you don’t have to be a mortgage lender to enter. The awards are also open to non-lenders, which can be any company involved in the mortgage sector.

So this could be mortgage intermediaries, law firms, conveyancers, surveyors, IT companies, fintechs, insurance companies and other suppliers.

Criteria

One single nomination cannot be entered into more than one category. So for example, if you have innovative technology, then choose to enter either the Innovation Award or The Best Use of Technology – not both.

The criteria for each award are explained over the next couple of pages. Last year’s winners are mentioned but there is only a brief description of why they won – more detailed information is in the December 2019 issue of Mortgage Finance Gazette (digital version click on Issue Archive) or check out the feature here.

The awards will be assessed by a panel of independent judges from within the industry.

Product provider awards

In addition to the nominated section there are also awards for the best lenders in various categories – banks, building societies, online providers, buy-to-let, equity release and intermediary lenders – but you do not enter these yourselves.

These awards will be based on detailed statistics from financial research company Defaqto.

The closing date to get your award nominations in is Sunday 27 September 2020. The winners will be announced on 18 November.

MFG AWARDS CATEGORIES

Mortgage Product Innovation

The Mortgage Product Innovation Award is for product design and development of a mortgage that is innovative and fills a gap in the market. With the changing demographic in today’s society, mortgages have to keep pace with evolving consumer requirements.

Product Innovation can cover any part of the mortgage sector including residential, first-time buyer, shared ownership, help to buy, guarantor, new build, buy-to-let, holiday lets, self-employed and contractor, part and part, flexible, offset, specialist, near prime, non-conforming, complex income and professional.

The exclusions here are later life lending and self build, which have their own categories.

Last year’s winner was Darlington Building Society for its ‘Professionals Mortgage’ that offers applicants in specified professions six times their salary to help get on, or move their way up, the housing ladder. The mortgage offers the highest multiplier on the market and has an LTV up to 90%.

Later Life Lending Innovation

This category covers any type of later life lending such as equity release and mortgages into retirement including RIOs. It could be a single product or range of products.

Last year this category was called Retirement Mortgage Product Innovation Award and it went to Parity Trust, a finance provider with charitable status that offers mortgage products aimed at helping those in later life.

Best Self Build Lender

This category is specifically aimed at the self build and custom build sectors. Our Product Provider awards are independently verified by Defaqto, which does not compile statistics on self build mortgages so instead we have a nominated category for the financing of self build homes.

The government has an objective for self build and custom build to account for 30% of new housing in England and has launched schemes such as Right to Build.

The nomination could be about one product or it could about the whole package you offer to borrowers. Does the product have any innovative criteria, how flexible is it, do you allow a range of construction methods, are the rates and fees competitive?

Or perhaps you offer borrowers more than just a mortgage –such as advice on house building, raising awareness of self build, access to suppliers and so on.

Ecology Building Society picked up this award last year for its flexible and tailored approach to the needs of self-builders. It will consider non-standard materials and construction types and flexible staged payment drawdowns rather than fixed build milestones.

Given its ecological mission, 78% of Ecology funded projects achieve an EPC ‘B’ rating (the national average in England is ‘D’). Ecology’s pioneering C-Change mortgage discounts incentivise energy efficiency by aligning the pricing of the mortgage to climate risk.

Innovation Award

Innovation can relate to almost anything that is new to the market over the past year – except mortgage products as we have a separate category for that.

The Innovation Award can relate to delivery channels, improving business efficiency or processes, enhancing customer relationships, developing ways of working with and managing people.

These are just examples but the judges will be looking for something that is cutting edge, something that makes a difference to the way you work or the way customers interact, for example.

Nominations can be sent in by lenders and non-lenders and can also be collaboration between, for example, a lender and a supplier.

Last year the winner in the lender category was more 2 life, which has streamlined business processes and invested in technology to meet consumer demand and to help advisers. more 2 life has simplified its product range across all LTV segments and relaunched its broker portal resulting in the average application to completion time reducing by two weeks.

The non-lender category was won by Landmark Valuation Services for its Climate Change Risk Assessment service for lenders. This enables lenders to understand the potential future impact changing climates may have on their existing mortgage back books, as well as new mortgage applications.

Best Use of Technology

Entries are invited from lenders, non-lenders, suppliers or a mix of lenders and suppliers.

This award covers the whole spectrum of IT within mortgage finance. It could be a joint nomination from a lender and a technology provider who have worked well together. Or perhaps a supplier has been successful with a number of lenders because of its systems.

The judges will be looking for evidence of a positive outcome through the use of technology, such as business growth, improved customer service, more efficient processes.

Last year Bluestone Mortgages took the award for ‘Best Use of Technology – Lenders’. Bluestone was the first specialist mortgage lender in the UK to integrate with Experian for open banking as part of its core underwriting process to check borrower affordability.

Phoebus Software picked up the award for ‘Best Use of Technology – Mortgage Systems’ for its work with Capital Home Loans (CHL). This involved completing a mortgage migration of around 57,000 accounts from CHL’s mortgage book onto the Phoebus mortgage servicing solution.

The award for ‘Best Use of Technology – Home Moving Services’ went to DigitalMove – powered by ULS Technology. The DigitalMove platform aims to improve the consumer experience of home-buying and selling by securely improves communication, increasing the speed of housing transactions, reducing cancellations and aborted cases and eliminating duplication such as rekeying.

Customer Service/Treating Customers Fairly

Good customer service and treating customers fairly are interlinked. Customer service can cover many aspects of how an organisation interacts with the people it does business with.

This could be innovative ways of working with customers, how you enhance the level of customer satisfaction, how your products and service levels meet customer expectations or you could just explain how you live and breathe your TCF policy.

The winner in the lender category last year was Yorkshire Building Society, which introduced a weekly ‘quiet hour’ in branches to help people whose personal circumstances mean they would benefit from a calmer, more relaxed environment.

The quiet hour is aimed at those who have sensory sensitivities or impairments, dementia, learning disabilities, ADHD and autism, or mental health conditions like anxiety.

In the non-lender category the winner was Key, which helps one in three equity release customers but the whole industry benefits from its investment in the market to change perceptions of lifetime mortgages across consumers, policy makers and other key stakeholders.

Community Services

This award recognises work in the voluntary sector, to which many financial services organisations are committed. Your entry could refer to one really worthwhile project or a campaign or a selection of wonderful things.

Criteria to consider could include staff involvement and voluntary activities, community spirit, financial contributions and fundraising.

Collecting this award las year was esbs (Earl Shilton Building Society). Considering esbs has just 31 staff, the society contributes so much to support its local community. This is not just in monetary terms but also in staff volunteering and offering up the use of its two branches for the good of others.

Corporate Social Responsibility

The Corporate Social Responsibility Award is different to the Community Services Award as it goes further than charitable and community involvement.

What the judges will be looking for is how you run your business to produce an overall positive impact on society. You can choose one particular aspect of your CSR programme or describe different aspects of it.

This can cover social policies, ethical concerns, education and training, the impact your business has on the environment such as reducing your carbon footprint and energy saving initiatives and how you work with and treat your customers, business partners, staff and other stakeholders.

Principality Building Society was the winner in the lender category last year with its focus on bringing financial education to young people in Wales, across all age groups. This includes working with secondary schools involved in the Business in the Community ‘Business Class’ programme to help pupils gain financial qualifications with the London Institute of Banking & Finance.

In the non-lender category Computershare Loan Services took the award. Its CSR policy is widespread and aims to get behind a more sustainable future for the communities in which it operates. Globally, the firm has an annual Green Office Challenge and in 2019 this was “turning the tide on plastic waste”.

Best Debt and Arrears Management Strategy

Since the global financial crisis lenders have been showing forbearance to enable borrowers to stay in their homes but now there is the dilemma of coronavirus and an unprecedented number of payment holidays being granted by lenders.

If you have a good arrears management/forbearance strategy that’s helping people, then why not share your success. This could be a joint entry from a lender and supplier, such as debt management companies, mortgage servicers and law firms, or a single entry.

Last year the lender category was won by Newcastle Building Society, which partnered with Paylink Solutions to develop a digital debt help service with integrated open banking technology – the first building society to introduce this service to members facing financial difficulty in paying their mortgage.

Computershare Loan Services won the non-lender category for its proactive work with clients and their customers ahead of changes to Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI). Computershare worked with over 2,300 accounts with SMI claimants across a number of lenders.

Best Anti-Fraud Service

Financial organisations invest heavily in trying to combat fraud. Entries could cover mortgage fraud, conveyancing fraud, valuation fraud, phishing or ID fraud or any other type of financial fraud where organisations have put in measures to detect and reduce fraud or stamp it out.

Again this could be a joint nomination between lender and supplier or separate entries.

The winner last year was conveyancing solutions provider LMS for its Bank Account Check service which tackles ‘push payment’ conveyancing fraud. It is a free service that allows consumers to verify the bank details of their law firm.

Best Law Firm

All lenders need legal advice so this category is aimed at law firms that work in partnership and offer excellent service to their lender clients.

This can be for any aspect of legal work from litigation and regulation through to arrears and repossessions, remortgage work, title defects, securitisation and mortgage book sales, professional negligence and fraud.

Last year’s winner was Aberdein Considine, which has focussed significant resource on innovation, introducing speech analytics and call transcription to all of its major contracts to enhance service quality and compliance. It has also launched a free online debt help service to assist borrowers who find themselves in financial difficulty.

Best Conveyancing Firm

Conveyancing is a vital part of the home buying process so tell us what sets you apart from your competitors.

This could be customer experience strategy, online case tracking, good communication, robust training, vigilance against cybercrime and identity theft. Whether you are online or on the high street, it doesn’t matter just so long as you do a good job.

The winner last year was The Moving Hub – a new conveyancing platform designed to help mortgage brokers, financial advisers and estate agents connect to one of the largest panels of vetted solicitors across England and Wales.

Best Surveying Firm

This was a new category last year and is open to any surveying firm. The award covers both valuations for mortgage purposes and all types of surveys from home reports to full building surveys.

The submission could be based on the surveying firm’s relationship with lenders, the quality of surveys, case tracking, reducing post valuation queries for lender clients, customer communication, training programmes and technology.

The inaugural winner was e.surv, which has introduced initiatives in response to client and colleague feedback and emerging market risks.

It has improved the compliance and quality of valuation reports by replacing ‘random sampling’ with real-time audit, i.e. checking completed property inspection cases in ‘real time’. This provides lenders with an assessment of valuation compliance and quality before a report is submitted.

Best Loan Servicer

This is the second year we have included this award and is aimed at those firms that carry out mortgage servicing for lenders and firms that have acquired mortgage portfolios.

To enter this award you must be a mortgage servicer and demonstrate why you are good at what you do. This could include examples of your risk management framework, investment in technology, training, arrears management strategy, a robust process for setting up new loans, boarding new mortgage books, MI reporting, customer service and communication with borrowers.

The inaugural winner of this category was Computershare Loan Services. One of the standout projects last year saw an Irish lender sell a £2 billion complex mortgage book to one of CLC’s clients requiring a significant data clean up. The sale completed on time and increased the assets under management for both the client and CLS.

Individual Achievement

This award is open to anyone, irrespective of where they are employed in the hierarchy, who has succeeded in their work or career in difficult circumstances or undertaken an individual challenge or challenges that are out of the ordinary.

In the past it has been won by people who work tirelessly for their local community through fund raising or giving of their time to helping others or have been brave in the face of adversity.

There are individuals out there who truly do some amazing things, so why not nominate a colleague who has gone beyond the call of duty.

Leadership

This is in recognition of diplomatic and spokesman skills which have reflected well on the industry generally, as well as on the recipient’s own organisation.

It also incorporates leadership qualities where the nominee can focus their organisation on its corporate goals and direct the management team and business effectively.

The award last year went to Jeremy Duncombe, director of intermediary distribution at Accord Mortgages. Jeremy joined Accord in March 2018 and has made a significant impact in a number of areas.

He has transformed Accord into a lender which places the broker at its heart. Under his leadership, the whole team – from management down – embodies a passion and desire to do the right thing for brokers and their clients.

Lifetime Achievement

The title of this award speaks for itself. It is for someone who has excelled in their work and the mortgage industry for many years, who is perhaps retiring.

Last year the judges decided to award this to two people – both very different but equally deserving.

Stephen Mitcham of The Cambridge Building Society stepped down as CEO having dedicated his professional career not only to the people of Cambridge, but to the sector and local community too. He remains forever passionate for the industry in which he has worked for over 30 years.

Wendy Graham is customer liaison manager at Landmark Valuation Services. For 25 years Wendy has helped thousands of mortgage valuers, surveyors and lenders who have required advice or support relating to the Landmark / Quest survey and valuation technologies and services.