Scarborough Announces Plans For New Specialist Lending Brand

Press release published on 14 August 2006 by Scarborough Building Society

Scarborough Building Society is to launch a new specialist lending brand offering niche products ranging from prime to heavy adverse. The range will also include specialist buy-to-let products.

The Society is creating Scarborough Specialist Mortgages (SSM) to enable it to cater for the full spectrum of customers – and enhance its intermediary service offering.

Named to provide a clear association with its Scarborough Building Society parent brand, Scarborough will seek to differentiate SSM from others in the marketplace on the basis of:

• Clear and simple products;
• High quality service and underwriting;
• Competitive rates and introducer fees;
• Innovative products.

Scarborough Specialist Mortgages will complement the other elements of the SBS Group, including asset trading subsidiary North Yorkshire Mortgages (NYM) and third party mortgage administration arm SMS Mortgage Services – giving clients access to a wealth of asset trading and servicing support.

The new specialist subsidiary is to be launched initially to a select group of packagers and the Society’s existing key relationships, with a wider roll-out envisaged in the next phase. Brokers will continue to have full access to the Scarborough Building Society product range.

Plans are also being formulated for a direct-to-consumer launch in the future.

Brokers generally will be asked to find out more and register their feedback, questions and interest via a dedicated website – more details of which will follow shortly.

Chief Executive John Carrier said: ‘These are very exciting times for the Scarborough Group – with a great deal of growth and diversification activity underway across the business.

‘Scarborough Specialist Mortgages is one lynchpin of these activities, which will enable us to cater for the whole market in terms of our product offering, rather than just certain segments of customers.

‘The new subsidiary is being launched in direct response to the social and demographic changes currently underway in the UK, where increasing levels of personal debt and customers with imperfect credit are becoming more commonplace.

‘We have a great deal of experience in the sub-prime arena through our existing subsidiaries and we believe this will give us a head start in the non-conforming sector.’

Head of Group Marketing Tony Burdin added: ‘We are working on providing a distinctive set of options to intermediaries who are looking for more specialist solutions for their clients.

‘While there are a number of providers currently operating in niche areas, we believe we will offer a real alternative in terms of both our product and criteria structures – tailored in response to extensive feedback we have had from brokers about the kinds of things they are looking for.

‘While we’re not ready to give full details of our product structures as yet, I can say that the driving force for us will be upon providing simple, flexible access to some of the most competitive non-prime products on the market – all supported by an outstanding level of service boasting some of the best specialist underwriting support available.’

Background Briefing - Scarborough Building Society

• We are a successful regional Society with a national reach
  Established in 1846, we are Britain’s 18th largest society, with Group assets under management of circa £3 billion.
• The SBS Group is made up of Scarborough Building Society, SMS Mortgage Services, which administers mortgages for major clients, and our asset trading arm, North Yorkshire Mortgages Ltd.
• Following major investment in skilled people and leading edge systems, the SBS Group offers mortgage origination, as well as trading and servicing.
• SMS Mortgage Services is committed to offering a bespoke service to meet each client’s specific needs.
• Through SMS, SBS currently handles third party administration assets totalling more than £1.5 billion – a figure which will increase dramatically as a result of the Basinghall agreement – on behalf of a growing range of clients.
• Supporting mortgage intermediaries is a major commitment, through fresh IT solutions, new product development, forging new partnerships and offering a personal service.
• We believe in leading by example and being different through our professionalism, innovative products, systems and infrastructure, and the way we do business.

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