Below you will find the latest updates from businesses relating to their plans for COVID-19. Should you have an update please email [email protected].
Note this page will be updated regularly.
ASTL
The ASTL takes the well-being of its staff, members and associates very seriously. We are maintaining a close watching brief on governmental warnings and the increasing impact that COVID-19 is having on our country and we will follow any official guidance as required.
Given the Prime Minister’s announcement on Thursday and following the news that many large public events have already been postponed we have chosen to defer our quarterly meeting until a later date.
That said, it is still business as usual!
However, should ASTL need to close its offices, our staff can work from home. There should be little or no impact on our ability to respond to business telephone or social media contact and therefore we will retain the ability to provide you with our full and comprehensive service. Where appropriate, our phone lines will be diverted as required.
We will, of course, update you further if things change. In the meantime, thank you for your continued support and we wish everyone well during this unsettling period.
Broker Conveyancing
Clearly at the moment our primary concern is the health of our staff and their families – in that sense, no risks will be taken.
We have put a number of plans in place including: all non-essential travel will cease – our area directors will work from home for the foreseeable future; plus all our office-based staff can work as normal from home if we need to close the office – they each have phones and computers linked to the office, so we expect business to continue as normal.
We continue to communicate to our adviser users via phone and e-mail to reassure them that we are continuing to work as normal, and we have also seen the respective plans from all of our law firms and know that they too have rigorous plans in place.
Dock9
Following remote working tests last week, from Monday this week all of our team are now working from home until further notice. As a digitally focussed company we are very well set up for remote working and do not see the current situation greatly affecting the service we are providing to our clients, which along with our staff’s wellbeing, is our top priority.
Contact – we are available on email and phone lines (with the same telephone numbers) are still open as normal during business hours.
Workshops – we will be moving these to remote workshops which we have already done previously for our overseas clients and work very well.
Client Meetings – we have many tools available to us to hold meetings remotely, namely Google Hangouts, Zoom and Skype.
Development – our developers are all on hand to continue to support existing and new projects.
Advice – myself and our client services team are all on hand to provide any advice on your current digital projects or any improvements to your digital offering that you wish to make in light of the current climate.
Whilst these are uncertain times, we will endeavour to keep our clients in the know on relevant and useful information that can help.
eligible.ai
Considering the evolving COVID-19 situation, I wanted to personally reach out to provide an update on what we’re doing at Eligible.
Our team is guided by two priorities: being available to support you and ensuring that our service is uninterrupted.
We’re keeping ourselves safe, by taking precautionary remote working measures to make sure we’re here when you need us.
As part of our commitment to Business Continuity we have tested and measured our ability to remain fully functional and maintain SLAs. This test has been 100% successful and we are confident business will continue as usual for us in the event of any further restrictions.
We understand that this is a very difficult time for all businesses and therefore if you would like some free advice, guidance or tips on how you can deploy remote working, please reach out.
Fleet Mortgages
At the moment we’re in a business as usual situation for Fleet Mortgages, but recognise the importance of following all the guidelines in order to keep our staff and their families safe and risk-free as possible.
Our sales team is still out in the field and we’ve told them that they can continue to see advisers if they are happy to do this and if the adviser is also happy.
That said, we also recognise that in the near future this might not be possible and we’re therefore putting in place a series of measures to deal with such a situation.
Clearly, our sales people will be available via phone and email as usual, plus our regional BDMs are setting up specific WhatsApp groups for their broker contacts – these can be used to communicate on specific Fleet mortgage enquiries but also to allow advisers to communicate with their peer group.
We feel it will be useful for all to share information as the situation progresses. At head office we have the capability for staff to continue to work remotely and have access to our systems – currently one member of staff from each of our different departments is doing this as a trial and this has helped us work through a small number of technology issues that have been raised.
Rest assured, that Fleet is in a very strong position to continue operating regardless of the situation and we’ll be working with all our adviser partners to help them through this period.
Foundation Home Loans
We continue to assess the impact of Covid-19 on our staff and customers in line with government advice. Our approach is one of pragmatism and common sense.
With regards to our existing borrowers who may experience payment difficulties as a result of Covid-19, we will determine appropriate forbearance options based on an assessment of the borrower’s individual circumstances, as we always do.
Impact Specialist Finance
We will be keeping a close eye on the government warnings and the increasing impact that COVID-19 is having on our country. We will follow any official guidance as required.
Ensuring the health and wellbeing of our staff, their families, our partners and clients is of our greatest concern.
As it stands, we are business as usual. However, should impact need to close it’s offices, all of our staff can work from home. The impact portal is ‘cloud’ based and therefore there should be no impact on the ability to continue to provide you with our full range of packaging and client referral services. Our phone lines will be diverted as required.
We will update you further if things change.
Thank you for your continued support and stay safe.
Keystone Property Finance
Keystone Property Finance will be changing to remote working for all staff including head office as a precautionary measure to protect the health and safety of the team amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Our investment in our online systems means we are 100% cloud based which allows all our staff members to work remotely from home.
This includes our telephone services which will enable us to continue to assist brokers with their cases and enquiries. We expect to be able to continue with our service as near to normal as possible.
We have already taken the decision to halt face to face meetings between our external business development managers (BDMs) and brokers.
The team now offers meetings via video call, as well as being contactable through email and telephone. Our BDMs will also not be attending any events in an effort to reduce the risk posed to our staff and wider team.
We will continue to monitor the guidelines set out by the UK Government closely and should the situation change we will act accordingly.
We are conscious that you will be receiving many messages from businesses relating to COVID-19.
However, we feel it’s important to provide an update on the actions we are taking to ensure the business remains fully operational whilst much of the country shifts to remote working.
As an agile technology company with cloud based systems, we are fortunate that this transition will be straightforward.
Having anticipated the possibility of remote working for some time, we’ve been busy preparing our staff, whilst testing our virtual working environment to ensure a seamless transition, with no disruption to service.
We will be shifting to a fully remote environment over the coming days and will keep you informed as we do so.
If you have any questions, please speak to your BDM. Alternatively, email us on [email protected] or call us on 0207 096 2700.
We look forward to working with you during these challenging times.
Lambert Smith Hampton
In light of the evolving Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, we would like to update you on the steps we, at Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH), are taking.
We continue to closely monitor government advice and are taking action in line with our Business Continuity Plan (BCP), to reduce the risk to our people and clients from COVID-19. The health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and clients remains paramount.
Our BCP allows us to continue to provide a fully uninterrupted and high quality service to our clients. We have resilient infrastructure and fully tested systems which enables us to adopt smart working practices.
With this in mind, we are advising colleagues to avoid any unnecessary travel and large gatherings of people, to help reduce the potential exposure to COVID-19.
We have conference and video call facilities in place to remain fully connected to both our people and clients at all times.
Unless government advice changes we will, continue to attend key stakeholder meetings, in consultation with our clients.
We have over 1000 professional staff operating from our extensive office network across the UK and Ireland.
This, together with our IT platform, means that in the event that any of our people become unwell, we have the company resilience to continue to provide an uninterrupted service to clients.
We are continually monitoring and reviewing the escalating situation in line with the latest government guidance and will keep you updated on developments.
Finally, our thoughts go out to those already affected by the outbreak.
TFC will be following the advice set out by the UK Department of Health. Our overriding focus is the health & safety of our people, our partners and our clients. TFC and our lender partners will work hard to maintain the high standard of service that you and your clients are accustomed too.
TFC has a robust Business Continuity plan in place to ensure that it will be business as usual for all. Our business continuity plans include a Work from Home (WFH) strategy to maintain business services if it becomes necessary to restrict access to our Manchester head office. We have also introduced a stay at home isolation policy for anyone displaying symptoms or returning from affected areas.
Paperless Office & Cloud Based Remote Systems & Servers
Our offices have been paperless for some time and all business and documentation is managed by our system 1APP. The 1APP servers are hosted by Amazon in a number of countries with the benefit of the BCP standards they maintain.
All users have remote access to cases 24/7 via 1APP. This will allow all working practices to continue from any location. 1APP allows DIPs, product selection, download and upload of documents, lender management and all with real time contact with our people.
Our WFH strategy covers all TFC operational and back office services including:
Underwriting Telephony and all Call handling Customer Services & Support Sales Business Intelligence /Reporting Technology Compliance Product & Marketing Our Lender & Supplier Partners
We are working closely with our lender & supplier partners to ensure that service will continue as normal. Our position may need to evolve in line with any further updates from the Department of Health or changes in local circumstances. We will communicate any changes to you as events evolve and conditions in time improve.
On behalf of us all at TFC, our lender and supplier partners, we would like to thank you all for your continued support and we wish everyone good health during this difficult time.
Scottish Building Society
We are following the latest UK government guidance to limit travel and contact as we all pull together to delay the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).
From today until further notice, your local BDM will be working remotely and will not be travelling.
As an essential service, our priority is our customers: our intermediary partners, their clients and our members.
So you can expect your BDM’s full support, via phone and email, to support you and your clients throughout this next period.
Stonebridge
Clearly the safety and well-being of all Stonebridge staff is of paramount importance, as is the support we continue to give to our hundreds of AR firms across the country.
We continue to follow WHO and government guidelines and to remind staff and our network members of the NHS advice and the steps they should be taking in order to protect themselves.
Like all firms in the sector, we may well have to change the way we work in the coming days and weeks in terms of colleagues working remotely.
While it’s currently business as usual, we have comprehensive contingency plans which can be invoked to ensure that all our central departments in Basildon, Milton Keynes and Nottingham remain functioning so that we continue to provide the great service which our member firms are used to.
Technology is clearly at the heart of this and we’ve reiterated to our 680 mortgage advisers how we will maintain our services, particularly given our Revolution system is cloud-based, and we anticipate that if face-to-face advice is prohibited or unwise then most brokers will move to an email and phone model.
This is all about ensuring both our staff and our mortgage advisers stay safe, and that Stonebridge can continue to operate effectively as a supportive network in the face of this dreadful situation affecting us all.
Twenty7Tec
As we navigate these difficult and unprecedented times, I wanted to write to you all personally to make you aware of the steps that the team here at Twenty7Tec have taken to ensure continuity of service to all of our customers.
1. As you may have noted, we implemented a travel and face to face meeting ban on all our sales and relationship teams from last week, and banned external visitors to our office. 2. On Monday of this week, we implemented ‘Pod Working’ in our office, which restricted the amount of team members that could be in the office at any one time together to limit social contact. 3. On Tuesday of this week, we moved all critical services, including our Product team who update our SOURCE platform with lender product information, and our Helpdesk team, to secure home working. 4. All other colleagues now have the ability to self elect to work from home in a manner that enables us to fulfill all required functions to continue to develop our product and service our customers. Our office for the moment remains open however.
We posted an update on our website and social media today, which you can read below. This states that our Helpdesk is, and will continue to operate at full capacity with no changes to either working hours or service levels.
https://www.twenty7tec.com/news/covid-19-update-helpdesk-to-remain-open/
We can, and indeed at present expect, to continue to run our entire business using this new operating model for a significant time to come, with no disruption to our services or continued product development.
Further, we are wholeheartedly committed to doing all we can to ensure that you, our customers, can continue to service your clients in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
Our company values state that as a business, Twenty7Tec will lead through innovation, always deliver, and do so with integrity. Those values stand as true today as they did two weeks ago, and will continue to stand whatever the weeks and months ahead may throw at us all.
May I take you the opportunity to wish you and yours all the very best. If there is anything we can do to support you and your business further at this time, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Watts Commercial
Watts Commercial Finance is closely monitoring the developing situation concerning the Coronavirus. As such, we have implemented our robust business continuity plan to ensure that we continue to operate at full force during these uncertain times.
Watts remain committed to supporting our clients through this difficult time to ensure that they can continue to operate during this period of uncertainty. Therefore, if any of our clients require support throughout this time, our commercial managers are on hand to assist.
We are regularly updating our employees on the situation in line with government advice on the necessary precautions to take to ensure they and their families remain safe. We have also implemented extra measures to ensure that our employees are prepared to work remotely where required.
Some of these measures include:
– Temporary cancellation of all non-essential meetings at our offices
– Temporary cancellation of our upcoming wind down and social events
– All long distance travel which involves extensive time on trains or in confined spaces to be reviewed on an ongoing basis
– Voice and FaceTime meetings to be offered to clients with remote access provided for all managers
As the outbreak continues to evolve, we will provide further updates as our circumstances change.
In the meantime however, it’s business as usual.
