Brokers round on moneysupermarket.com moneysupermarket.com


By Sarah Davidson


caused a stink with brokers in early august by releas- ing faulty research claiming nine out of ten mortgages are only available direct to consumer. But analysis from mort-


gage Brain showed 7,397 live mortgage schemes across the whole market, including variations of the same deal, with 84% of those deals not available direct from lend- ers and just 16% of mortgage deals were available direct from lenders. Fahim antonaides, group director at London-based broker mortgage centre iFa, said the moneysupermar- ket research was not only wrong, it did not explain the pros and cons of each deal. For example, the mortgage Works offers a 2-year fixed rate of 2.69% at 70% loan to value with a 2% arrange- ment fee. moneysupermar- ket does not list this deal and puts an alliance & Leicester deal at 2.64% at the top of the table with at 70% LtV and 2% arrange- ment fee. “the tmW deal is not as


good as the a&L deal on rate (just 0.05% higher) but it’s a different proposition,” antionades explained. “For example tmW take the aver- age of the past two years’ net profits on self-employed cas- es, which means if you have declining profits, it could work in your favour.” Following outrage from intermediaries moneysuper- market.com withdrew its analysis and said: “our in- tention with [this] press re- lease was to highlight the


vagaries of the mortgage market and we never in- tended to criticise brokers. We also didn’t say don’t use brokers, we would never do that. intermediaries are a very, very important part of what we do and we believe the broker really does add value.”


But it was “too little


too late” for Personal touch Financial Services, which sent moneysupermarket. com-owned Paaleads.com packing as a direct result of its parent’s mortgage press gaffe. PtFS’s sales and market- ing director, dev malle, said:


Tanned or just badly burnt…


by Robert Sinclair director AMI


as the holiday season dawned it looked as though the mortgage market was being sent on permanent holiday. the FSa consulta- tion on revised responsible lending rules has not been universally welcomed. the number of hoops that a lend- er will now have to set a cus- tomer to jump through are about to make the olympic rings look seriously under- nourished. the biggest risk to us as


brokers is the extent to which we can continue to add value to lenders in the process. the greater the rules imposed by the FSa specifically on lend- ers, the more they might need to engineer procedures that minimise the role of the broker. our challenge is to clearly


express the independence, value and support that repu- table intermediaries add to the process. customers need the expertise a good broker brings in advising on the


most appropriate product for their needs, and ensures they avoid being burnt. as the stream of enforce-


ment cases flow from FSa, it is important to contextualise that these are still at less than half a per cent of those that worked in our industry at its peak. this is still unaccept- able, but these were predom- inantly small independent firms that slipped under the radar of a more relaxed regulatory regime. Both FSa and lenders are much more vigilant and we have a more professional industry. add- ing further controls may limit the ability of customers to execute appropriate and affordable solutions to their financial needs. the economy continues to


perform above expectations. unemployment, growth and the public borrowing re- quirement all are in better territory. inflation continues to worry but it still appears to be commodity price and tax driven and is not universal, so capable of control. interest rates whilst likely


to rise, will only see 25bp jumps over an extended pe- riod. this will mean that a full 1% increase is likely to be at least a 15 month cycle.


the continuing departure


of firms and consolidation of brokerages is a painful part of the economic cycle. Predic- tions on gross lending mean a £140bn run rate to the end of 2011 is looking a likely outcome. £12bn a month of which £7.5bn is intermedi- ary sourced is the world we have to model. market share and cross-selling across the value chain is key. Whether it is providing


certainty for the customer that they will be able to com- plete on their property, or delivering an effective pro- tection package that meets needs and budget, is crucial. delivering efficient lead


generation, sourcing, appli- cation, tracking and cross sale models will also be es- sential to be part of a cost ef- ficient industry with robust audit trails that evidence in- come and affordability. Finally if anyone wants to


read the epitaph of a regula- tor that has finally lost touch with reality, page 35 of the recent paper on PPi com- plaints – Policy Statement 10/12 - is it. You cannot rely on what


our supervisors tell you, dis- plays a distinct lack of au- thority.


mortgage introducer SEPTEMBER 2010 5


“it is not the first time they have misjudged the interme- diary community and i am somewhat shocked. We have therefore taken the difficult decision to serve notice on the corporate relationship we have with Paaleads and remove them from our lead generation panel.”


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