Intermediaries
Intermediaries
Customers
From today, Friday 31st March we have reduced pricing on our Holiday & Short Term let products and our ex pat products. We have also launched a new HMO product option. See our product guide for more details.
Intermediaries
Not for customer use. For professional intermediaries only.
When it comes to Consumer Duty, we want to work with you, our intermediary partners, so we can grow together. That’s why we are always listening when you ask questions about Consumer Duty, what it means for us as a lender and what it means for you.
Here you can find our Frequently Asked Questions.
We define a good outcome as one where the customer receives a product that is designed to meet their needs, that provides fair value and helps them achieve their financial objective. This can only be achieved by communicating and engaging with you and customers, your clients, in a way that helps them to make effective, timely and properly informed decisions. We support customers to realise the benefits of the product without facing unreasonable barriers.
We will provide our target market and fair value assessments on our website. This will be in the format of a standard information sheet that has been created as a template through a number of industry bodies working together – The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA), UK Finance, the Building Societies Association and the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI). We understand the importance of the information being provided in a consistent format that is easily identifiable and understandable. We will communicate to you by email when our target market and fair value information sheets are available.
Intermediaries are responsible for ensuring their own fees and charges also represent fair value to their clients. We will provide you with the information you need to understand and communicate how our products and associated fees provide fair value to our target market. This will include average intermediary fees.
We will always treat any customer who has been identified as vulnerable as an individual, fairly and appropriately. We will communicate in a manner suitable to their circumstances and any communication needs they may have, ultimately ensuring they are generally supported in an appropriate manner. We have identified as part of our target market that a proportion of our customers may have vulnerable characteristics. Therefore, if we identify the vulnerability, or you disclose your clients vulnerability to us, we will record this and provide appropriate support that is required. This may include contacting the customer, you or both to check if additional information is required to aid understanding or find out if we need to change how and when we communicate.
Treating customers in a fair and appropriate manner has always been a focus of the financial services market and should not be a new concept to any lender or intermediary. While the TCF Principles have been in place since 2006, the industry needs to take further steps to ensure better customer outcomes. Consumer Duty introduces a new principle (Principle 12) which sets higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services and requires firms to put their customers’ needs first.
We will update all our intermediaries with any developments or Consumer Duty information through our website. We will make sure you have the information you need at the right time, in an understandable format. When new information is available, we will communicate to sign post where it can be found. Your Business Development Manager, and our Sales Hub are also on hand to offer any support you need or answer questions you may have.
No, we don’t anticipate any change to our service levels because of Consumer Duty. We will always seek to identify efficiencies and improvements to our service on an ongoing basis.