Welcome to the second Mortgage Finance Gazette Rated for Service Awards, in association with The Openwork Partnership. Once again, the awards acknowledge and applaud lenders that have supplied outstanding service to brokers. Our accompanying analysis provides brokers with insight into how they rate the service from their lenders, and offers lenders intelligence on the service areas where they are hitting the mark, or leaving room for improvement.
Strong strategic focus
The distribution of mortgages through intermediaries has never been greater, underscoring the commitment of both lenders and brokers. This is striking because, during the assessment period for the Mortgage Finance Gazette Rated for Service Awards, the lender-broker relationship was tested to the extreme. Nevertheless, in all three sectors of the Rated for Service Awards — mainstream, specialist and BTL — the highest scores were awarded for lenders’ strategic focus.
Among mainstream lenders, those that were Top Rated for Service scored highest for strategic focus. Of the top 19 mainstream lenders, an impressive 18 improved their strategic focus score from last year. It was a similar picture for specialist lenders: those Top Rated for Service also scored highly for strategic focus.
Meanwhile, of the eight highest-scoring specialist lenders, four improved their strategic focus score from that of the previous year. As for BTL lenders, those with the highest scores for strategic focus largely matched those that were Top Rated for Service in the BTL category.
Of the 18 BTL lenders that were scored for the Mortgage Finance Gazette Rated for Service Awards, 12 managed to improve their rating for strategic focus compared to last year’s results.
Prevailing on products
During the assessment period for these awards, borrower affordability became a major concern for lenders as the soaring cost of living and rising mortgage rates took hold. Whether faced with a first-time buyer (FTB) or with a BTL investor trying to remortgage, lenders had to become creative with new product offerings, and — in some cases — break the mould. Against this backdrop, being awarded Top Rated for Service or Rated for Service on products is a commendable achievement.
The mainstream sector led the way on product scores, with the overall Top Rated for Service and Rated for Service lenders performing well compared to other business areas. Eleven of the 19 award-winning mainstream lenders improved their product scores from last year.
The product scores for specialist lenders were noticeably lower than those for the mainstream market. This may reflect the complexity of some borrowers’ needs and the ability of lenders to meet broker expectations. Nevertheless, four of the eight top-performing specialist lenders improved their scores.
Despite increasing challenges in the BTL sector, product scoring in this market was on a par with, if not higher than, that of some other business areas — a reflection of lenders’ hard work and the way they adapted to the new, higher interest-rate environment. Of the 18 top-scoring BTL lenders, eight improved their product scores from last year’s inaugural Rated for Service Awards, with only marginal dips by the rest.
Click here to see all of the results
From next week, Mortgage Strategy will publish the MFG Rated for Service Awards supplement, with all the results and analysis available in both print and digital formats.
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