14 May 2014 | By Bob Hunt, Chief Executive, Paradigm
So here we are – Mortgage Market Review day on 26 April has been and gone and the earth did not spin off its access nor did mortgage systems collapse under the weight of all the changes they had to endure.
In fact, given it was a Saturday, MMR appeared to pass off without incident.
However the next few weeks and, I suspect, months will see a bedding in period and certainly at a bank branch level, prospective borrowers who have previously been able to see an “adviser”, go through the detail and gain a mortgage approval in the time it takes to drink a coffee and read the sports pages are going to be left somewhat shocked by the increased time such a process is going to take.
At our recent mortgage and protection round table a lender representative told the audience that they expected the time it takes to see a branch adviser to rise from half an hour to two-and-a-half hours. The FCA recently said in these very pages that it is comfortable with individuals undergoing three-hour meetings with “advisers” post-MMR.
But the big question is will borrowers themselves be happy with this? Might they instead prefer to seek the services of a mortgage broker that can not only source the whole market but has been collecting the type of information now required of branch advisers for many years. This should certainly be the message going out from the advisory community in the months ahead but you will need to ensure potential clients are aware of your services over the option of going direct.