The Mortgage Lender Benchmark Assessment, published this week (June 5), surveyed brokers on the service and propositions offered by lenders in the first six months of this year and pinpointed which mortgage providers brokers were most likely to turn to on an everyday basis.
Smart Money People polled 424 brokers last month and found that Halifax was the most popular bank this year followed by BM Solutions, NatWest, HSBC and Santander in the top five.
Metro Bank remained the UK’s poorest rated bank while Barclays, which "offered great rates, but not much else", also rated badly.
| Banks | |
| Lender | Overall rating |
| Halifax | 93.5 |
| BM Solutions | 92.6 |
| Natwest | 90.7 |
| HSBC | 90.5 |
| Santander | 79.4 |
| Bank of Ireland | 79.4 |
| Virgin Money | 78.7 |
| TSB | 78 |
| Scottish Widows | 77.9 |
| Atom Bank | 75.7 |
| Clydesdale Bank | 75.2 |
| Precise Mortgages | 73.8 |
| KentReliance | 71.7 |
| Aldermore | 70.9 |
| Platform | 70.3 |
| Paragon | 70 |
| Barclays | 67.2 |
| Metro Bank | 61.9 |
In general, building societies remained the highest rated lender-type overall — partly due to the fact their processing time was getting faster — while specialist lenders were less popular than last year and were "getting slower", according to brokers.
Coventry Building Society bagged the top spot for societies while Accord Mortgages and Principality Building Society were the second and third favourites.
| Building Societies | |
| Lender | Overall rating |
| Coventry | 92 |
| Accord Mortgages | 90.6 |
| Principality | 90 |
| Nationwide | 87.8 |
| The Mortgage Works | 86.2 |
| Leeds | 82.9 |
| Skipton | 82.9 |
Pepper Money came out as the UK’s top rated specialist lender, with its relationship managers performing particularly well, while More 2 Life was the most popular lifetime lender, beating L&G and LV.
| Specialist | |
| Lender | Overall rating |
| Pepper Money | 76 |
| Bluestone | 72 |
| The Mortgage Lender | 70.9 |
| Kensington | 66.7 |
| Vida Homeloans | 61.5 |
According to the survey, the performance of most lifetime lenders was improving and brokers were increasingly willing to recommend them.
| Lifetime | |
| Lender | Overall rating |
| more2life | 90.7 |
| Legal & General | 89.1 |
| LV= | 82 |
| Canada Life | 78.6 |
| Aviva | 78.5 |
Application to completion speed, online systems, and criteria received the most feedback from brokers for the past six months, with criteria leapfrogging to the second most commented upon theme.
Overall, the satisfaction of brokers sat at 81.6 per cent — slightly lower than in the latter half of 2018 — but satisfaction with relationship managers climbed above 80 per cent.
The survey also questioned whether broker size and membership to networks or clubs affected advisers' satisfaction levels.
According to the findings, intermediaries belonging to Paradigm Mortgage Services had the lowest satisfaction with the lender they dealt with, while Sesame members had the highest.
The research also found that brokers at larger firms are slightly more satisfied with the lenders they deal with. Brokers in firms with 19 or less advisers had an average lender satisfaction rating of 80.7 per cent compared to 82.3 per cent for brokers in firms with 20 or more advisers.
Michael Fotis, founder of Smart Money People, said: "While firms, including Halifax, HSBC and Coventry Building Society, received overall satisfaction scores above 90 per cent, poor communication and difficult application processes in particular made brokers less likely to recommend other lenders.
"This is against a background where in the first half of 2019, broker satisfaction with lenders has declined slightly."
Last week a study from Iress revealed lenders' digital functions still fell short of adviser expectations.
Commentary from intermediaries showed brokers wanted to see improvements in case tracking that provided more real-time updates and included progress with valuations and solicitors.
The study showed there was still a high proportion of lenders in the wider market that did not provide real-time case tracking and many updates provided online, by e-mail and SMS were not fully real-time, were inaccurate or included insufficient detail.
A Metro Bank spokesperson said: "We’re disappointed with these survey results and remain committed to providing the best in service and convenience for our customers and our brokers. We always work closely with our brokers to understand their feedback and help us improve in the future.
"For example, application to offer times have seen a 30 per cent improvement this year and the average speed to answer on our broker help desk is under 25 seconds, demonstrating our commitment to providing our intermediary partners with great service."
imogen.tew@ft.com
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