Money Bulletin # 68

Origin Mortgages

Important Product Announcement

With effect from the close of business on Friday 13 June 2008, Money Partners will withdraw its current Origin Mortgage range. It will be replaced by a refreshed range of products which will be available from Monday 16 June 2008.

New product features and changes:

• 5 new risk grades – Near Prime/Near Prime +/Lite/Lite +/Flexi
• Introduction of a credit score to all business
• The withdrawal of Flexi 2
• New 2 & 3yr fixed and discount mortgages rates
• Changes to self-cert & BTL loadings
• Revised LTV and maximum advance caps
• Additional criteria requirements on new-build properties
• Split lender completion fees to reflect the use of external 3rd party solicitors or in-house legals

 The new applicable rates will be announced on Monday 16 June 2008 to incorporate the standard LIBOR reset. Full details of all changes will be available via the refreshed Mortgage Matrix and Underwriting Guidelines Booklet. Updated versions of the documents will be available via the Porthole on Monday 16 June 2008.

Product Availability

The existing Origin Mortgage product range will be removed from the Porthole and MoneyPort from the close of business on Friday 13 June 2008. The new products will be effective and available from Monday 16 June 2008. Quotations,KFI production and access to the new products will be available from Monday 16 June 2008. Applications on the new products will require the use of eDecision in all cases to ensure that a credit score has been obtained.

 Please contact your local regional SMS Office to obtain an eDecision.

Pipeline Deadlines

Cases submitted on the existing products, criteria and rates must be with your local regional SMS Office by close of business on Wednesday 11 June 2008. No new offers will be issued on the existing products, criteria and rates after this date.

Offers issued remain valid until the expiry date on the mortgage offer letter which will be no later than the Friday 13 June 2008. Cases on the old products that do NOT complete by this deadline will need to be re-issued on the new product range available from the Monday 16 June 2008.

If you have any questions regarding this bulletin please contact your local regional SMS Office.

The Kensington Prime range will be available from Monday 2 June 2008

and includes the following features:

Fixed rates from 7.19%

Day 1 Self-cert - no minimum trading or employment history needed

No Higher Lending Charges

Loans up to £250,000 on Self-cert

Loans up to £350,000 on Verified and Buy-to-Let

 The Kensington Prime Product Guide is

available now from the SMS Porthole.

All applications must have the required funds to be booked and will only be allocated once the correct process has been followed. This booking system provides Kensington with accurate knowledge of our pipeline at any given time.

Only funds that are booked will be accepted.

If you have any questions, please contact your local regional SMS Office.

Beacon have reset their LIBOR rate.

From 5.70% to 5.90%

Please find the Updated Product guide

available via the Porthole.

SMS sees consolidation as the lifebelt to packagers

Solent Mortgage Services (SMS), the national branded mortgage arranger, has unveiled its proposition to fellow packagers which will enable them to provide ‘best of breed’ services to their intermediaries without the cost of the infrastructure. SMS is offering to provide all the facilities that packagers need including products, processing or systems, and access to SMS’s award winning technology platform, The Porthole.

SMS, which has one of the widest mortgage product ranges along with integrated services covering secured loans, commercial mortgages and debt solutions believes that the key to packager survival is to remove as much cost as possible while maintaining the integrity of the product and service offering.

The market has changed and will not be as it was. The traditional packager has been dead for some years and companies will have to bring control to the process, satisfy compliance regimes, provide audit trail along with quality of business that adds value to the Lender and distribution channels alike. They will also need to be able to get products to market in the most cost effective way.

Ian Balfour, Sales & Marketing Director at SMS, said “companies face a future with fewer products to market and the pressure of ensuring that they can maintain relationships with lenders who are reviewing the number of packagers with whom they want to work. The fact is that those reviews are going to leave more packagers out in the cold and along with having fewer products to market, packagers still have to maintain an infrastructure to deal with new business. In my opinion with slimmer margins and reduced volumes many packagers will not survive in their present form which is a shame. However, the skills that they have developed in generating intermediary business are irreplaceable. Therefore we want to give packagers a chance to develop a new business model for themselves that enables them to plug into the best products and services and make use of the origination skills which have been so successful. It is a time for open and frank discussions on the future of our industry and where we fit in the value chain and SMS is happy to speak to our colleagues about the longer term”

Following the recent Product Refresh and Criteria Changes (See below)

Additional Criteria Update

Valuations Criteria
Revised criteria on Minimum Property Value:

• Non Standard Construction Property Types: £100,000
• Standard Construction Houses, Private Flats and Maisonettes: £80,000 with a maximum 80% LTV

Self-Cert Applications
Being a prudent and responsible lender they will review applications to ensure that there is a reasonable alignment between occupation and income declared. They will review this where income is less than £60,000 for NRM to GEM 1 and less than £40,000 for GEM 2 to GEM 7.

 Debt Management Plans
Where an applicant is in or is about to enter into a debt management arrangement the DTIR must be calculated using the contractual monthly payment with each creditor and not the reduced debt management arrangement.

Mortgage/Rental History – Policy Reminder
Our current policy requires 12 months proof of payments for all mortgage/rental agreements involving any of the applicants.

Child and Working Family Tax Credits
As of the 20 June 2008 we will require applicants that are using Child or Working Family Tax Credits within their income calculation to confirm that they will be in receipt of this benefit for a further 3 years from date of application.

 Please find the updated Product Guide available via the Porthole.

Following the recent Product Refresh

Please find the updated BTL Product

Guide available via the Porthole.

SMS re-appointed to the NEW Platform Packager Panel

Following a review of current market conditions Platform - the intermediary lender of Britannia Building Society - has streamlined its packager partners and we are delighted to announce that SMS have been included in this new elite panel!

Platform offers a wide range of products from Prime to Non-Conforming so, if you are

• Worried you are not getting the best product for your client  
•  Worried about getting your procuration fees paid 

With triple award winning systems giving you data transfer and on-line applications for all our Lenders, and the confidence that a major Lender has been through a thorough due-diligence project to protect its business, you can be confident that your cases benefit from the SMS treatment.

Take a few minutes to visit our Porthole and SEAS (Solent Enquiry to Application System), using the links below complete with sound, and see for yourself the huge range of functionality Porthole can offer you, the Introducer.

Porthole(4 mins) SEAS  Product Research  (3 mins)SEAS AIP  (2 mins)

Don't delay - Take full advantage of what we can offer your business and to maximise completions from your mortgage leads. 
Please call our Sales Support on 01329 245816 for more information on how SMS can compliment your great business.

platform product withdrawal

Platform will be withdrawing their current product range with effect from close of business Friday 6 June 2008.

New products will be available from Monday 9 June 2008.

Pipeline deadlines:

Clickdecision and kfis
All current products will be withdrawn from the Platform website, Porthole and all sourcing systems at close of business Friday 6 June 2008.

Packaged applications
All packaged applications must be received at Platform by 5pm Friday 6 June 2008.

Applications must have a clickdecision, be fully packaged and accompanied by all items on Platform's shopping list.

Offers
Applications submitted by the deadline and existing pipeline cases must be offered by 5pm Monday 30 June 2008.

 No exceptions will be made.

If you have any queries regarding the above please contact your local regional SMS Office.

 SMS are working hard to see if this deadline can be extended but for now please work to this tight deadline.

Kensington's Prime Range from Solent Mortgage Services now offers

Prime, Self-cert and Buy to Let mortgages.

Please find available on the Porthole the KMC Prime Product Guide

§         Fixed rates from 7.19%

§         Day 1 Self-cert - no minimum trading or employment history needed

§         No Higher Lending Charges

§         Loans up to £250,000 on Self-cert

§         Loans up to £350,000 on Verified and Buy-to-Let

Current Bank Base Rate is 5.00% with effect from 10 April 2008

Mortgage networks and packagers to promote TCF website

An influential group of mortgage networks and packagers is set to promote the TCF Info website www.tcfinfo.co.uk to their broker databases to help them meet the December 2008 deadline for embedding TCF into their everyday business.  The decision follows a joint meeting which aimed to find ways to spread the TCF message as widely as possible in the light of early FSA indications that many smaller mortgage firms are still struggling with TCF.

Since its launch in June 2006, TCF Info has earned praise from mortgage intermediaries for its range of user-friendly guides, checklists, tips and tools which can be downloaded for free and adapted for business or training purposes. The website currently receives around 18,000 visits a month (up 100 per cent since last October) and has a database of registered brokers who receive email alerts when content is updated. It also issues a quarterly TCF Info newsletter focusing on TCF developments relevant to the mortgage industry. Market research has shown that brokers who use the site feel confident about what they need to do to implement TCF.

Those who have committed to promote TCF to their introducers include: AMPD, Enterprise Group, Intelligent Finance, Mortgage Match Mortgage Next, Premier Mortgage Service, RAMP, Solent Mortgage Services and The Mortgage Alliance.

John Malone, Managing Director of PMS, said: “Whist we have our own compliance department, we recognise that the quality and scope of material available from www.tcfinfo.co.uk  complements and adds value to our own services. We already actively encourage all of our intermediaries to check the TCF Info website to make sure they are doing everything required since the March deadline for having MI (Management Information) in place, and will be strengthening this message as we move towards the December deadline. Our hope is that, by helping our brokers to ‘self serve’ to implement TCF, we will help them to get TCF right first time. This must be in everyone’s long-term interests – be they the product provider, distributor or customer.”

Nick Battersby, Compliance Director of RAMP added that “With FSA telephone assessment and possible follow-on visits about to start in earnest our message to brokers is, ‘Go and visit the TCF Info website – it tells you what you need to do, when and – most importantly ‘how’. In particular if you’re struggling with TCF MI it will point you in the right direction by providing checklists which you can self complete.”

Frank Eve, Chairman of the TCF Lender Forum, which developed the TCF Info website, says: “With the TCF Info content now fully scoped – and with December 2008 creeping ever closer – the time is right to take our message via the large packager groups, networks or clubs to the many thousands of brokers who may not have access to compliance guidance. We are conscious that smaller brokers in particular are more likely to need help in implementing the TCF principle due to not having the hours in the day to research and understand what they really need to do and this is where TCF Info can help them.”

TCF Info has recently launched a TCF ‘Self Audit’ checklist designed to help brokers record their overall progress in implementing TCF.  Eve points out that completing the Self-Audit will provide brokers not only with an immediate gap analysis of current procedures against requirements under the TCF principle, but it will also provide brokers with MI (Management Information) evidencing their progress with TCF. He also says they will continue to refine and enhance the web content to meet customers’ needs.