Tony Salentino, director of Compete FS, believes packagers have been vindicated by Abbey’s admission that it would pay more for better quality business.
“There is a universal truth about what goes around comes around,” said Salentino. “In the case of packaging, that value has been identified already by a number of forward thinking lenders in the new market conditions.
“Abbey’s admission that it will need to pay more in order to attract a better quality of case, is tailor made for the type of service that my company and others have been perfecting over the past 20 years. We have the experience of active lenders to back up the fact that packagers are back and ready to make a vital contribution to the profitability of lenders and intermediaries.”
“GE supports packagers,” said Mark Snape, sales director at GE Money. “They are a vital element in providing us with high quality cases, which can move to offer and pay out more quickly. Working closely with our packager partners as a team, we can meet the needs of clients, their advisers and our own underwriting and quality targets as a lender. It is a cost effective win: win situation for all parties.”
Andrew Ferguson, head of sales and distribution at Kent Reliance, echoed the message. He said: “Well packaged cases benefit everyone in the chain, ensuring the end client and the intermediaries’ expectations can be met whilst making life easier and more efficient for the lender.
“Working closely with packagers like Complete ensures an excellent service, backed up by extensive knowledge of the market which allows Kent Reliance to achieve its aims of fully supporting the intermediary market.”
Salentino added: “With lenders’ funds being restricted, staff resources being cut and a general tightening up of criteria, it seems the role of the packager in terms of both administration and distribution has never been so relevant or needed.
“The ability and experience of dealing and managing intermediary expectations, vetting applications and DIPs, managing lending tranches and volumes, market research, industry experience and direct marketing, ending with us only being paid on successful completion of the mortgage, requires our role to be very efficient internally but is also very cost effective for the lenders.”