Inform 21st July 2023

Please contact your Business Development Manager or call our Sales Hub on 0344 257 0418. More information can also be found at Product Transfer – Intermediaries | The Mortgage Lender

Santander for Intermediaries

NEW! Pre-book a product transfer 6 months ahead

Product Transfers

From Tuesday 25 July, you’ll be able to book a new deal for your client 6 months before their current fixed rate deal ends. This will be available online or by phone direct to customers from the same date.

This follows the launch on Monday 10 July of the ability for you to view our current product transfer rates online.

For more details on how to submit a request, view current rates and cancel a request, go to our product transfers page.

Switch to interest only for 6 months or increase the mortgage term

From Monday 24 July, your clients will be able to reduce their monthly payments if they’re up to date with their payments and they want to:

• Change from a repayment mortgage to interest only for 6 months, or
• Increase their mortgage term

Your clients will need to apply directly by phone or online.

Further information

Whilst a product transfer is pending, your client cannot make any other changes to their mortgage until that new deal has started. This includes a switch to interest only for 6 months or a term increase under the Mortgage Charter, and other changes such as overpayments. If they already have a Mortgage Charter change in place, they also cannot submit a request for a product transfer.

Here at The Cambridge, we are very aware that the landscape for our Intermediary Partners has changed and that working “normal” hours is a thing of the past.

Whist we can’t always be around to answer the phones, we do understand that there are times when an Intermediary is carrying out a meeting with their client and needs to check lender criteria efficiently or outside of our working hours.

To provide additional support we are pleased to have launched “Cambridge Digital Assistant”.

This chat bot has been supporting the team for a few months and handles 31% of all live chat enquires, in addition to offering an out of hours criteria service.

The Cambridge Digital Assistant serves as an easy access point of contact for Intermediaries, ensuring prompt and accurate responses to their queries, 24 hours a day. At initial point of contact, the chat bot shares a variety of 18 common FAQs to select from for ease and efficiency.

In instances where the chat bot cannot address specific concerns, during normal working hours, dedicated team members seamlessly take over the conversation, guaranteeing uninterrupted support.

Our Business Development Team Adviser’s pride themselves on being able to answer a wide variety of new business enquires including self-employed, Shared Ownership and multiple income source queries, which are normally more complex and take time to understand.

The Cambridge Digital Assistant ensures basic criteria questions are answered, freeing up more time for the team to answer the more unusual questions, which since Covid seem to have grown meaning Intermediaries are needing more in-depth conversations around specific client circumstances.

A review of common questions is undertaken on a regular basis ensuring the chat bot is kept up to date and remains current with a minimum of 1,252 minutes saved, demonstrating the considerable impact and value generated by the new digital assistant.

Our chat bot is part of our live chat facility which can be found here and the team are always happy to talk to you on 0345 601 2744.

Following the UK Government announcement, we’ve launched a range of help and support for NatWest customers.

If your customer is concerned about their finances, missing a mortgage payment or paying off their mortgage, the sooner they get in touch, the sooner we may be able to help. They can visit our website, where they can get mortgage support, practical saving tips and ideas on reducing household bills. They may also want to consider contacting a free debt advice organisation.

Your customer’s options

There are two options available which will help reduce your customer’s current mortgage repayments in the short term without an affordability check or any impact to their credit score.

1) Amend their current mortgage repayment type to Interest Only for six months.

2) Or increase the term of their current mortgage with the ability to revert back to their original term within six months, if they wish.

When their six month Interest Only period ends, their monthly payments will increase as they will resume paying both the Capital and Interest elements of their mortgage.

Customers can extend their mortgage up to a maximum term of 40 years, so long as they’re under 75 before the term ends. By increasing their term, the total amount of interest they pay back over the term will increase. If they revert to their original term within six months, their monthly payments will also increase.

The following customer types/applications are excluded from these options:

• Buy to Let applications
• All customers who are already on Interest Only mortgages
• Customers in arrears
• Customers who have already applied for relief

Important information

You can still submit a product transfer application as you would today.  If the customer is also looking for Charter support please inform them that they will need to contact NatWest.

If you have a customer who is taking the six month Interest Only option to support with their cost of living, it’s important to note that they will not be able to complete any additional borrowing in relation to their mortgage during this six month period. Please do not submit such an application where your customer has applied for relief.

Barclays

Our Revamped Intermediary Website is Live

Our revamped intermediary website is live

Based on your feedback, we’ve revamped our intermediary website.

As part of our commitment to improve your experience with Barclays, we have gone live with changes which will make the website easier to navigate, so that you can access the information that you need much quicker and simpler.

Feel free to explore the new site, where you’ll find our:

• Affordability calculators
• Comprehensive lending policy
• Competitive products and propositions
• Consumer Duty
• Award-winning podcast
• Literature and support guides
• Useful how to videos

Transforming the broker experience

We have also recently established a new UK based service support team, including Live Chat, enabling our colleagues to better answer queries at first point of contact, and are delighted to now offer direct referral to Underwriters for new, complex, case enquiries that cannot be resolved by the support team.

These enhancements are only the beginning. We have a roadmap of changes to transform our offering and look forward to sharing more detail very soon.

Thanks for your continued support

Your Barclays support team

Last December, following a period of market volatility, we launched a new feature, Track to Fix, across our buy-to-let product range. 

Six months on and were delving into the feature! Read on to find out more.

What is Track to Fix?

Track to Fix, sometimes refered to as, T2F is a feature that applies to any new discounted variable product launched after 7th December.

This feature provides landlords with the security of securing a discounted variable rate buy-to-let mortgage now, whilst also providing them with the flexibility to move to a fixed rate at a later date if they want to.

Key features of Track to Fix

1. Landlords can apply to switch to a fixed rate any time during the discounted product term
2. Applies across our product switch fixed rates which are available at that time
3. There is no early repayment charge incurred by the landlord

What does this mean for you and your landlords?

The ability to offer the best service available!

• Landlords can secure a funds NOW and switch later
• Ability to closely monitor the market, with the option to take advantage of a possible lower rate at a time in the future when the market is less volatile
• Paragon will pay a procuration fee for the new product, and then a further 0.4% on the future switch if arranged by the intermediary
• Landlords won’t incur any additional fees or early repayment charges

In short, increased flexibility.

Why now?

“This feature was designed with our landlords in mind and is there to offer sustainable rates during this time. 

“This option has proven very popular for landlords who believe that 2 and 5 year fixed rates will reduce over the coming 18 Months.” 

Moray Hulme, Director Mortgage Sales

Legal and General

Bringing Protection into your Conversations

Legal & General Podcast – Episode 8

With consumer duty coming down the tracks, it is essential for advisers to start planning how they will bring protection into their conversations especially when we consider the cross-cutting rule “Avoid foreseeable harm to retail customers”.

But what if you are an adviser who doesn’t have time? What if you haven’t sold it for a while? What if you don’t have access to a range of products? In this episode Hazel & Wayne are joined by Steve Johnson and Nic Hopkins the owners of Real Life Advice, who may just have the answers!

Listen now: Just Covered – Episode 8 – Bringing Protection into your Conversations – YouTube

Nic and Steve used their background in sales, training, and development to set up Real Life Advice, a protection firm providing advice to clients on all of their protection insurance needs.

We cover:

• Nic & Steve’s journey to setting up their business
• What they believe has been key to their success
• How Nic & Steve ensure clients get a streamlined and consistent service
• The benefits in using a protection specialist for your clients protection needs

If you are experienced in financial planning, mortgage or protection advice and would like to feature on future episodes, please reach out to hazel.johnston@landg.com. Please also get in touch with any topics you would like us to cover on this podcast.

Listen now: Just Covered – Episode 8 – Bringing Protection into your Conversations – YouTube

Pepper Money is pleased to be introducing the governments First Home Scheme.  This gives first time buyers the chance to purchase a new build property at a significantly discounted rate off of the market value.

The scheme is a natural extension of our current Right to Buy and Shared Ownership ranges which helps support hopeful homeowners find their way onto the housing ladder.

We will have our Pepper 24, Pepper 36 and Pepper 48 products to support this scheme.