Winners and those organisations that were highly commended gathered last month in London for the Mortgage Finance Gazette Awards, which recognise achievements within the industry
The office of TLT Solicitors, overlooking a wonderful night time view of the City of London, was the setting for the Mortgage Finance Gazette Awards.
TLT Solicitors kindly hosted this years Awards presentation and Mortgage Finance Gazette expresses sincere thanks for the wonderful hospitality offered to us and our guests. The informal evening was a chance for the winners and highly commended to mingle among peers and to find out who won and why.
There are two parts to the awards ? the Nominated Awards and the Best Mortgage Product Providers. The process for the Nominated Awards involves nominations from within the industry and a judging panel then chooses the winners. This year?s judges were Diana Wright of the Sunday Times, Paul Broadhead from the Building Societies Association, Bernard Clarke of the Council of Mortgage Lenders and Joanne Atkin of Mortgage Finance Gazette.
The Best Mortgage Product Providers are deciphered independently based on a variety of analytical data compiled by independent financial research company Defaqto.
Defaqto looked at all fixed, variable and discounted mortgage products available in the market but excluded any products which had an extended tie-in period, those which were available only to existing borrowers, or restricted to specific geographic locations. Both interest rates and product fees were taken into account.
The products were compared on a like for like basis, for example, comparing the most competitive set of prices of two-year initial period products against other providers? two-year products, taking into account lower and higher loan-to-value bands. The products are awarded points based on their competitive ranking, which are added up for each provider across each mortgage type to identify the overall positioning.? The final ranking also took into account the consistency of competitive offerings over the whole year.
The results of the nominated awards are here.? A quick glance of all the winners.
Innovator Award for Lenders
Winner: Bath Building Society
Bath Building Society has found a way around the issue of ?mates mortgages? where the practicalities of friends banding together to get a joint mortgage is somewhat problematic and unappealing to lenders.
The society has launched an Income Plus mortgage, which is taken out by a single borrower who can then rent one or more rooms to lodgers who pay rent. The rent part can account for up to 50 per cent of the mortgage payment. Other lenders tend not to take this income into account in the affordability calculation, or take a negative line with letting out some part of the property.
Income Plus is aimed at first-time buyers willing to share with friends in order to get onto the property ladder.
Since undertaking these kinds of loans Bath has had no problems with arrears or bad debt. The Income Plus mortgage comes on the back of two other innovative products, Buy for Uni and Parent Assisted Mortgage, both of which allow collateral charges over parental property to facilitate high loan-to-value lending at lower prices than would otherwise be possible at LTVs 95 per cent and above.
Highly Commended: Ipswich Building Society
The Ipswich Building Society is unique in offering a mortgage specifically for disabled borrowers.
In partnership with Suffolk County Council, Saffron Housing Trust and Orwell Housing, a product called Suffolk HOLD mortgage ? Home Ownership for Long term Disabilities ? has been created.
Suffolk County Council?s Adult and Community Services identify those suitable for the scheme, and the council provides an underpinning guarantee. The care arrangements are made around the individual, to ensure they have their independence while still receiving support.
The scheme is supported by an independent deputy who is assigned to make sure that the individual applicant?s best interests are fully assessed. A specially trained mortgage adviser ensures that the Suffolk HOLD scheme applications get the care and attention they deserve.
The disabled adults and carers report that they have seen an increase in the quality of life, and in some cases the amount of care and supervision has been reduced.
Innovator Award for Non-Lenders
Winner: Landmark Quest
Q-Mobile from Landmark Quest has been designed to streamline the valuation reporting process for the surveying industry.
e.surv Chartered Surveyors is the first to adopt Q-Mobile enabling its 365 chartered surveyors to capture all the information needed for a mortgage lender?s valuation via a mobile tablet device. It automatically links in additional elements that are required, such as property price comparable data, electronic site notes, floor plan sketches and photographs.
The software provides time and efficiency savings, as e.surv?s surveyors can now access supporting data and information online while onsite at the property. It offers the ability to sign-off completed reports while on-site for many instructions, which was not previously possible.
Q-Mobile saves time by removing the need to dictate reports verbally at the end of each instruction, which could result in inputting errors. It creates an enhanced level of accuracy and auditability, and intelligently checks each valuation report for potential inaccuracies or missing data. This ensures that the most accurate valuation is subsequently presented back to the lender client for use.
Highly Commended: Buildstore
Buildstore?s Build Out Cover is an insurance policy that insures against repossession of a self build or renovated property.
Build Out Cover offers an additional level of protection for lenders, alongside BuildStore?s exclusive MIG policy, underwritten by Jubilee insurance. If a claim is made on the policy the outstanding works will be completed and is designed to achieve the full value of the property, avoiding loss to the lender or borrower. It also includes indemnity to cover the borrower?s remaining financial input into the project.
Highly Commended: London and Country
London and Country?s free online mortgage tracking service for mortgage applicants was designed and built in-house and is available to any customer who applies to L&C for a mortgage, regardless of the lender the application is made to. It can be accessed 24/7and contains information about the mortgage, what stage the application is at, details and photo of the mortgage adviser and case notes.
Community Services Award for Small to Medium Sized Lenders
Winner: Darlington Building Society
Darlington Building Society always comes up with something innovative and different each year.
Working with Young Enterprise, the UK?s largest business and enterprise education charity, Darlington?s chief executive David Dobbs mentored 12 sixth formers who formed their own company and created Pock-!t Monsters - packets which attach to clothes or inside wellington boots and are great for carrying valuables around at festivals.
The society is also known for stepping in to rescue local causes, such as the Vibe Awards which celebrate young people and their achievements, and would not have gone ahead if it were not for Darlington.
Highly Commended: Newcastle Building Society
?Cornerstone of the Community? is the title of Newcastle Building Society?s community campaign.
Each branch adopted a charity of the year, a local staff volunteer programme was created and a financial education programme was developed. The society also launched ?best buy ISA and savings products where 1 per cent of the total balance went to its nominated charity - the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation.
Highly Commended: Monmouthshire Building Society
Monmouthshire Building Society has a longstanding reputation for supporting local communities in which it operates, and the wider charitable community.
This support is a combination of organisation-wide activities, individual staff endeavours and formal corporate support. It has an employee volunteering scheme, a local sponsorship programme and a Charitable Foundation.
Community Services Award for Large Lenders
Winner: Coventry Building Society
Coventry Building Society?s Community Partners programme allows all branches and head office departments to work closely with small community groups within each local area.
The judges particularly like the work the Coventry has been doing with a local school and Citizens Advice Bureau, supporting teachers to become CAB advisers and paying for a CAB information kiosk, as well as providing personal finance education to pupils.
The Royal British Legion is Coventry?s current national charitable partner. This partnership includes the award-winning portfolio of Poppy savings products, which has raised ?6.7 million for the Legion since 2008.
Highly Commended: Leeds Building Society
Supporting the communities within which Leeds Building Society operates is at the heart of the organisation and it fundraises constantly. The sales and operations teams at Leeds cycled to the society?s 60 branches and each branch organised local community events to support the fundraising effort. The JubiLeeds Big Bike Ride 2012 covered 1,300 miles on a variety of bicycles; quite a feat for novice cyclists on varying standards of bicycle.
Highly Commended: Yorkshire Building Society
Yorkshire Building has an established community programme and Charitable Foundation and donates a great deal of time and money to local communities. Staff and members of the society get the chance to nominate their own good causes to receive a donation.
The Make A Difference (MAD) week saw 1,118 local charities and small groups receive ?100 each. But the society also supports larger charities and this year RNLI was its charity of the year and the ?100,000 annual fundraising target was reached within eight months.
Community Services Award for Non-Lenders
Winner: Shoosmiths LLP
Shoosmiths LLP has a wide ranging corporate responsibility strategy helping good causes, both large and small. Its two main corporate charity partners are Help for Heroes and Brainwave.
Last year Shoosmiths raised ?62,600 for Help for Heroes to fund a resident?s bedroom in a personnel recovery and assessment centre. The law firm also raised ?55,600 for Brainwave, sufficient to fund a year of life changing therapy for 15 children.
In addition, the firm has supported 80 good causes during the year ranging from small local causes to national charities. This has included 1,018 volunteering hours recorded by staff in a range of team challenge, coaching and mentoring activities.
Shoosmiths has also provided more than 620 hours of pro bono advice provided to individuals and organisations and has set up pro bono clinics in Manchester and Northampton. A rota of legal advisers provides advice on such issues as landlord and tenant/housing, probate/trusts/court of protection, consumer, including debt, employment, neighbour disputes, personal injury and defamation.
Customer Service and Treating Customers Fairly Award ? Lenders
Winner: Yorkshire Building Society
The Yorkshire is one of the few lenders opening new branches ? four this year and another eight next year ? as well as 16 agencies. The role that branches play in the community is of great importance to the society and some branches have even extended their opening hours to suit local needs.
It also actively seeks out, listens to and acts upon the views of its members via a well-established Member Forum, Member Panel and Question Time sessions in branches.
The Member Forum consists of 17 members from across all the brands ? Yorkshire, Chelsea, Barnsley, Norwich & Peterborough ? that meet twice a year for one-and-a-half days. These people have access to senior managers, including the chief executive, and can challenge major decisions.
The Member Panel has 9,500 members who give regular feedback through surveys and focus groups. New products and features have been introduced this year as a result of feedback, such as free valuations and a fee-assisted legal package with mortgage products.
Highly Commended: Coventry Building Society
Coventry Building Society believes that customers? interests should be at the centre of everything it does.
The society has principles called ?Putting Members First?, which actually pre-date TCF by a number of years. Coventry aims to give members the highest level of service, it always try to be clear and honest, offering deals that give members good value without any hidden catches.
It listens to members via regular member roadshows, through surveys, at the members' council or just during day-to-day contact and is extremely supportive of its local communities. At the Coventry members are treated equally as all accounts are available to new and existing customers on exactly the same terms.
Highly Commended: Ipswich Building Society
Customer service is central to Ipswich Building Society?s vision statement: ?Ipswich Building Society will be admired for its great personal service, its caring approach and transparency. Live the difference?.
Customer Advisers do not work to a bonus or incentive scheme so the service they give is right for the customer, without the need to hit targets. When contacting the Ipswich by telephone, callers speak with a real human straightaway and not an automated response.
The society has a ?brand blog? on its intranet where staff can post customer comments and feedback, and this can be commented on by staff.
TCF is embedded into all of the society?s day to day practices and TCF training is included in the new starter induction programme as well as being completed by all staff on an annual basis. A TCF committee meets quarterly and has representation from all areas of the society.
Customer Service and Treating Customers Fairly Award ? Non-Lenders
Winner: Shoosmiths LLP
Shoosmiths Recoveries Service Group has had an internal TCF policy for many years but over and above this the law firm has set up a mental health framework to help customers who have mental health issues.
Staff and clients have had face-to-face training with external trainers from the Royal Society of Psychiatrists and the Money Advice Trust (MAT). A dedicated team of senior solicitors and other senior staff provide advice and guidance to their respective teams on mental health issues.
Shoosmiths initiated discussions with the Money Advice Liaison Group (MALG) regarding data protection exemptions. By informing the customer that a note will be made on the file regarding a customer?s disclosed or potential mental health condition clients, advice agencies and health/social professionals can determine the most appropriate action. These exemptions have been recognised by MALG who have taken them forward with both the OFT and the ICO.
Highly Commended: Countrywide
Countrywide incorporating Countrywide Surveying Services and Countrywide Corporate Property Services have comprehensive TCF training for every employee followed by individual TCF focused development plans. Every employee is tested each year and competency based bi-annual appraisals are heavily weighted toward the demonstration of TCF principles.
Highly Commended: Savills Asset Management
Savills Asset Management was nominated by a client for having ?TCF well and truly embedded in their culture, in everyone and everything they do.? The firm is commercially focused on achieving best price for every property they deal with and complications are dealt with smoothly to both the client?s and the ex borrower?s convenience.
Best Arrears and Debt Management Strategy ? Lenders
Winner: Bath Building Society
Bath Building Society takes a very individual and flexible approach to arrears and possession management.
Senior managers meet with borrowers at the property at an early stage ? sometimes even before any arrears have accrued. The aim is to understand why the borrower is in financial difficulties and work out what solutions might work.
The society has invested money in some properties to allow them to be finished or improved for marketing or sale. In a couple of cases it has project managed works at the property on behalf of borrowers, at minimal charge, to enable progress to be made. In other instances the society has encouraged letting to supplement income, where appropriate. The society is frequently told by estate agents, valuers and professionals with whom they work, that ?no other lender we can think of would do that.?
Best Arrears and Debt Management Strategy ? Non-Lenders
Winner: HML
HML designed a new collections strategy for a client with the aim of maximising cash collected and reducing losses and provisions.
HML?s special servicing team applied targeted multi-channel contact and collections activity to improve customer contact rates. This included dovetailing calls, bespoke letters and field agent deployment to increase contact with borrowers, stepping in early to prevent a situation deteriorating - all in line with TCF guidelines.
The performance of the portfolio improved dramatically across numerous measures including a 4.5 per cent drop in the number of arrears cases, arrears cases ?worsening? down by 20 per cent and arrears cases ?improving? up 25 per cent. The level of cash collected against cash due increased from 80.92 per cent to 93.84 per cent and the average amount of cash collected per arrears account has increased by 18 per cent.
In recognition of the advances in special servicing, Fitch upgraded HML?s rating.
Highly Commented: Acenden
Early identification of arrears and prediction of possible problems mean that Acenden can start to work with distressed borrowers sooner rather than later, which increases the chance of a positive outcome for the customer.
Acenden has invested heavily in technology and set up its AMS Decision Advisers for mortgage servicing analysis. This includes customer affordability benchmarking and a tool that assesses 39 different forbearance options.
The firm measures its performance through internal audit and service quality, and has also invested in its customer care and TCF strategy.
Highly Commented: LSL Corporate Client Department
LSL Corporate Client Department offers asset management sales disposal and centralised property management services to a wide range of corporate clients.
It aims to engage with customers and clarify as early as possible the reason behind late payments. The accounting system automatically produces daily debt recovery letters while telephone calls are scheduled to tenants three to four working days after the first rent due date if payment is not received.
LSL CCD is the first corporate asset manager to be awarded the independent standard ISO 9001:2008 accreditation.
Best Use of Technology ? Lenders
Winner: Leeds Building Society
Leeds Building Society developed in-house a secure email system for sending mortgage documents to solicitors. This means the solicitor now receives the mortgage offer within seconds of it being produced.
The offer document is automatically converted from a Word document to a secure PDF format. All documents are packaged together - the KFI offer, mortgage deed, deeds schedule and certificate of title - and securely emailed to the solicitor. The documents are also saved onto the society?s imaging system, which will help staff deal with any future queries as they have full visibility of every document issued.
Cost savings on post is estimated at ?22,000 and on the paper that would previously been used to print the documents, savings of over ?5,000. Around 400,000 pages a year will no longer need to be printed. Around 280 man-hours a year have been saved as a result of no longer needing to print and despatch the letters.
The possibility that documents are intercepted or fall into the wrong hands has also been reduced. Once received by email, solicitors can only access documents after entering their own password and the documents issued cannot be edited.
Best Use of Technology ? Technology Providers
Winner: Fasttrac Solicitors
Fasttrac Solicitors has developed an online remortgage conveyancing system, which makes the application process easy for customers to understand through the use of plain English.
It has designed simple online forms that are sent to and accessed via a secure website. Examples include leasehold property, and transfer of equity, or change of ownership as Fasttrac calls it as that is easier for borrowers to understand.
By cutting through the jargon and investing in technology Fasttrac has produced some impressive statistics, such as reducing the customer query rate by 90 per cent, reducing the borrower error rate in responses by 95 per cent and cutting processing times for change of ownership by seven to 10 days.
Other benefits are that risk management has improved, costs for Fasttrac and borrowers are reduced, less paper usage has lowered costs and Fasttrac?s carbon footprint, turnaround times have fallen and borrowers? experience of the process has improved
Highly Commended: DPR
DPR?s integrated mortgage origination system was supplied to OneSavings Bank as a single, centralised IT platform in a little over six months.
The system serves customers and intermediaries across four separate brands in three geographical regions and spans four regulatory environments. Mortgage applications are via a fully featured online web portal, which also provides in-depth case tracking, document exchange and secure messaging.
The DPR workflow engine automatically selects and executes the correct process for each application depending on the region, distribution channel, product type and regulatory environment.
DPR?s data warehouse solution provides a comprehensive reporting platform, allowing detailed analysis of lending patterns across and between the different business units, distribution channels and product categories.
Highly Commended: Landmark Quest
Lloyds Banking Group implemented Landmark Quest?s Q-Guard risk management dashboard to manage the analysis of residential mortgage valuations (across a range of LBG?s mortgage brands), in order to provide assurance that security valuations are as accurate as possible and to identify transactions outside the bank?s lending policies.
In addition, LBG uses Quest?s Q-Guard Forensic Service, which is an intelligence service that monitors and tracks for potential risks by automatically analysing emerging patterns and connected information. A specialist team then analyses the data to investigate underlying trends.
Best Anti-Fraud Service
Winner: Countrywide
Both Countrywide Surveying Services and Countrywide Conveyancing Services have a stringent selection process for their panels, and subsequent management of the panels ensures that the potential for fraud and risk is minimised.
Countrywide has achieved the ISO 27001:2005 (ISO 27001) standard which ensures that confidential customer and client data is handled in a secure manner, and that effective and robust risk management processes, business controls and fully tested recovery plans are in place to protect that data.
All staff receive training and Countrywide Surveying Services is in the process of introducing a reward system for any staff member that spots a potential fraud.
Best Law Firm
Winner: Optima Legal
Optima Legal specialises in property and secured debt recovery services for the lending market.
The firm prides itself on its relationships with lender clients from volume transactional work through to early arrears management, litigation, title defects and fraud. Its most significant ?volume? services are remortgage and repossession, and it is also involved in conveyancing and professional negligence.
The firm aims to assist lender clients in improving processes through pilot schemes, reviewing client processes and documentation, and providing training. It has helped lenders reduce costs by suggesting alternative fee structures to its clients offering up to a 50 per cent reduction in legal spend. One of the firm?s clients implemented this suggestion making an estimated saving of ?2 million a year.
Optima Legal also assists lenders in reducing costs through better understanding of their mortgage portfolio by providing them with relevant information as to why certain cases do not proceed to completion.
Over the last two years Optima Legal has invested heavily in enhancing its IT capability, including a new state-of-the-art workflow system and is due to introduce a new?customer, broker and client web site to include smart phone and tablet technology early in 2013. The firm has also worked with a number of lender clients to improve the electronic transfer of data.
Other initiatives include taking part in the Land Registry?s pilot as an early adopter of eDRS (electronic Document Registration Service) which aims to improve end-to-end turnaround times and costs associated with registration of clients? legal charge.
Leadership Award
Winner: Paul Marsden, Harpenden Building Society
Paul Marsden has been chief executive of Harpenden Building Society since 2007 heading up a small but very successful mutual.
During that time and under Paul?s leadership and guidance the society has capitalised on the economic environment without compromising its business model, security, integrity or profitability.
In fact, profitability has doubled during that time, new goals have been set and new opportunities pursued. Since the start of the credit crunch Harpenden has increased its assets by 35 per cent and mortgage lending has risen by 34 per cent. In that time it has also doubled its branch network to six.
Paul is heavily involved with the Council of Mortgage Lenders as a representative for small building societies on the Lending Strategy and Practices Panel. He is vice chairman of MABS - Metropolitan Association of Building Societies - and last year organised the Local and Regional Building Societies Annual conference.
Date: December 6, 2012
Author: Joanne Atkin
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