“The other reason has been our focus


on the customer - we looked at trying to give customers really good everyday value. And we’ve stuck to that proposition all the way through. We’ve been able to grow our business year on year-on-year on the back of that.” Brokers are certainly keen on the


deals offered by the Woolwich but many continue to express frustration with the low volume of cases being processed in the market, which can leave borrowers they see as good prospects out in the cold. Finlay explains the process behind the


volumes Barclays is prepared to lend. “I don’t think we line up any particular


segment of the market and say ‘that’s our target’,” says Finlay. “We have a number of key strategic partners within the clubs and the networks including with Legal & General, Openwork, Personal Touch Financial Services and Sesame PMS Bankhall. “Our game plan is to set ourselves a


target there in terms of how much funding we want to do, how much business we want to come from those particular companies and where would we like to be in terms of their rankings. “If we achieve a top three ranking, great,


if we don’t then we have conversations with the networks and clubs about their propositions and where we aren’t fitting in. But we’re now pretty much top three with every one of our key strategic partners and we’re hitting our lending targets with each one of those. We’ve done that through online fund booking.” Online fund booking, also known as


tranche management, has been in vogue this year with many lenders using the facility to control and monitor the volume of lending they do. Finlay adds: “It’s all about managing our


volumes, managing our capacity and then making sure that we can deliver a decent service off the back of that.”


Are you beIng served? In the dim and distant past brokers and customers alike have had issues with service at the Woolwich but Finlay says the lender is working hard to bring its service up to scratch. “Historically, the Woolwich service


has never been great,” he admits. “It’s had peaks and troughs and peaks and troughs so we’ve invested a lot in taking the fund booking online as opposed to relying on telephony as we did in the past. We haven’t stopped there – we’ll be continuing to improve that service, we’ve made significant strides in our originations processes and we welcome feedback from our broker partners.” Indeed, Finlay says the lender has


already acted on some of the feedback given by brokers. Face-to-face contact has been the main focus but the lender has also added to the number of people based in its call centre in Cardiff as well as having a dedicated in-bound team to deal with broker inquiries. “We’ve already listened to our


brokers and have consequently given all intermediaries a named contact in the bank to deal with who they can have face to face contact with,” he says. “We’ve also reviewed the role of our relationship managers and earlier this year we changed their titles from business development manager to relationship manager – and I’ve chosen the name carefully to reflect how their roles have transformed.” Relationships seem to be flavour of the


month for lenders, networks and trade bodies alike, with all parts of the mortgage industry keen to work together to rebuild the market rather than let it collapse as a result of in-fighting. “It’s important to us that we help


brokers to survive because they are a hugely important part of our business,” says Finlay. “We talk to brokers about our products


obviously and we talk to them about how they can help us in terms of submission of documentation and some of the quality issues that we may have. But we also share with them the data that comes from Barclays Capital including market views and crucially, we talk to them about their businesses.” Technology is one of the ways Finlay is


keen to add value to intermediaries. It’s still the go-go word in the mortgage market and the Woolwich is no different from other lenders in its appetite to upgrade. But it’s keen to get it right. “Currently we have a great piece of kit


called Introtrack which we use to update brokers through the application process. It enables us to send email and text alerts as the application progresses, but no-one’s really taking advantage of that,” Finlay says. “We need to understand why not. Either we need to do a better job of educating brokers or we need to change what we’re doing to make it more relevant for them. “What does a broker really want?”


Finlay muses. “I think he wants a good product and a reasonably swift process. They want to be in the loop the whole way through to allow them to add value to their customer.” It’s that which Finlay is keen to support


and which he believes will fit into Barclays’ future proposition for intermediaries.


brAve new world Finlay also has some fairly radical views on the future shape of the UK mortgage market, which tie in to the vision the FSA and government have of sustainable lending. “The onus is on the lender to be more


responsible and to income verify and check affordability – and I think that’s a good thing. It will drive innovation. When something like the consultation paper on responsible lending comes out, you immediately think, oh my God, we’re going to go back to full apps and paper flying about all over the place. But I think that’s an instant reaction. “The reality is people will think about


how to make their processes work quicker, better and hit their regulatory requirements. So it will drive innovation which makes it quite exciting.” Part of the furore that surrounds the


incoming regulation has focused on the future mortgage options for the self-employed and people with less straightforward income streams. “We do deal with self-employed,”


says Finlay. “If you are a Barclays current account holder we have PAML (Pre- Approved Mortgage Limits) which allows us to see what’s going in and out of a customer’s account and from that we can conclude what the limit should be for their mortgage. “It makes no difference whether they’re employed or self-employed. I can see


morTgage inTroducer SEPTEMBER 2010 29


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