‘SSM Does It For Us’ Say Intermediaries

Press release published on 10 November 2006 by Scarborough Building Society

The first intermediaries to do business with Scarborough Building Society’s new specialist lender today described what prompted them to choose this new entrant over their established sources.

Highly competitive rates; sensible underwriting criteria and direct access to experienced underwriters are some of the factors which seem to be hitting the mark as packagers begin submitting cases to Scarborough Specialist Mortgages (SSM).

Robert Hershaw , Managing Director of Active Investments, a member of the Alliance of Mortgage Packagers and Distributors (AMPD), said: ‘We are delighted to be given the opportunity of working with the Scarborough brand.

‘In particular, we look forward to giving our brokers exclusive access to the wide range of market leading products offered by SSM, coupled with its flexible underwriting approach.’

Eddie Smith, Operations Director for AMPD, added that SSM is highly thought of by all 13 member companies. ‘From their initial approach to us we have worked closely together to ensure we designed products that would be highly competitive, including market leading criteria and pricing,’ he said.

‘This has resulted in some extremely competitive products and we have no doubt that we will be working in partnership with SSM for many years to come”

Simon Evans, Group Relationship Manager at Scarborough, said: ‘Our packagers have submitted a number of cases to SSM so far, and the direct access they have to our highly experienced and well respected underwriting team has helped immensely.

‘We are also keen to work closely with our key relationships, which will involve offering exclusive products, including niche areas of lending.

‘The scale of many of the larger lenders – and their focus on technological solutions – means that they often don’t have the scope for this kind of one-to-one support.’

He added: ‘We carried out extensive research prior to the launch of SSM to try to ensure we could provide the kind of product and service offering intermediaries needed.

‘Based on this, we were pretty confident we’d got it right, but it’s nice to hear from them directly that they think we’re hitting the mark.

‘Competitive pricing backed by a bespoke service offering are two of the key USPs for SSM, so I’m delighted that it’s fitting the bill – and encouraged to see the first cases coming in on that basis.’

Scarborough has established a dedicated Specialist Mortgage Centre in Leeds, where SSM mortgages are being dealt with by a team of former Kensington Mortgages non-conforming underwriters with a total of 30 years experience between them.

Scarborough’s new subsidiary went live on Monday, 9 October, through chosen packager networks and some of Scarborough’s key account intermediary partners.

Offering a range of attractive features, including competitive rates ranging from 5.29% on prime loans to 6.49% on Adverse Buy-to-Let mortgages, SSM represents the Scarborough Group’s first foray into specialist mortgage origination – after offering a mortgage administration facility to other lenders through its Scarborough Mortgage Services (SMS) subsidiary for a decade-and-a-half.

Other outstanding attributes of the SSM range include simplicity, flexibility, market-leading lending criteria, commonsense underwriting, no hidden loadings and attractive procuration fees.

And this is all backed by direct access to some of the most experienced specialist underwriters in the business, via its Packager Desk in Leeds (Tel – 0845 389 9593) and Broker Desk in Scarborough (Tel – 0845 130 9737).

While SSM is currently distributing through the AMPD and Freehold packager associations, as well as selected key account partners, a wider intermediary availability is anticipated in the near future.

Full details are available via the new SSM website – www.scarboroughsm.co.uk, where brokers can view full products details, request KFIs and download application forms.

---