MortgagesNov 17 2015

Virgin Money sticks to broker manifesto promises

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Virgin Money sticks to broker manifesto promises

Virgin Money has reported back on its performance against the intermediary commitments made in February, with gross mortgage lending growth of 38 per cent in the first nine months of 2015, compared with the same period in 2014.

The ‘manifesto’ for brokers that it published nine months ago included four commitments to the market.

The first was to provide dedicated service teams to support intermediary partners and listen to feedback.

On this measure, Virgin Money claimed to have built one of the largest teams of dedicated business development managers nationally, available to intermediaries face-to-face or over the phone.

The team has held more than 76,000 partnership meetings so far this year to provide guidance, knowledge and support.

The second commitment was to provide mortgage offers within 10 working days of receiving a fully-packaged application, or give the customer £100.

By processing applications as soon as they are received and instructing the valuation on day one, 95 per cent of fully-packaged mortgage applications that went to offer did so inside the 10-day SLA.

On the “small number” of occasions where it has taken longer, the customer has received £100.

The third commitment was to provide intermediary partners with access to Virgin Money’s full mortgage range, rather than keeping the best deals for direct customers.

This has been kept to throughout the year, according to the lender, with intermediaries also getting access to 25 exclusive products so far.

Finally, the firm committed to providing at least 24 hours’ notice before increasing mortgage rates.

Again, this promise was kept, and the average notice period has actually been higher than that at 29 hours.

Michelle Gilbert, an adviser from John Charcol, said: “We submitted an application at about 4.30pm and it offered less than 24 hours later. My mind is blown – I’ve never seen an application dealt with so quickly and I’ve been at this game for quite a few years now.”

Peter Rogerson, Virgin Money’s commercial director for mortgages, added combined with a number of other improvements made this year, such as a policy app and improved online affordability calculator, sticking to these commitments “has been an important factor in delivering the strong mortgage lending growth we have seen so far in 2015”.

peter.walker@ft.com