CML throws its weight behind the TCF Lender Forum
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The Council of Mortgage Lenders has joined forces with eight mortgage lenders who have confirmed their ongoing support for the TCF Lender Forum and its website.
The CML says it will be playing an active role in the website in the next 12 months, which offers intermediaries guidance on treating customers fairly.
The trade body says the move is to assist both lenders and their distribution partners in preparing for the changing regulatory environment as the Mortgage Market Review progresses in 2011.
Industry support for the TCF Lender Forum now accounts for 21 lending brands in 2010/2011, which indicates a continued commitment to their intermediary partners from a full range of mortgage lenders in the market.
The Lender Forum was established in November 2005 as a result of a shared desire by its lender members to offer mortgage intermediaries a free, single, neutral and practical source of information on outcome based regulation.
The TCF Info website currently receives around 11,000 visits a month and has a database of 6000 registered brokers who receive a newsletter and updates on regulatory developments. The site also carries out periodic online surveys into brokers’ experiences of regulation and provides follow up feedback to registered brokers.
The CML says its involvement with the TCF Lender Forum will give it an opportunity to communicate with the wider industry audience, including intermediaries, at a crucial time, with a mortgage market review consultation under way on distribution with responses in February 2011.
The Forum will continue to be chaired and organised by Frank Eve Consulting Limited, but with active CML involvement in meetings.
Michael Coogan, director general of the CML, says: “With Frank Eve’s assistance, we are looking to build on the website’s success over the last few years to provide ongoing support to the intermediaries at a difficult time for them in the market.
“We see the Forum as playing a potentially critical role in establishing more effective industry-wide collaboration on non-competitive issues of strategic importance, in parallel with our ongoing discussions with AMI.”
Frank Eve, the chairman of the TCF Lender Forum, says: “The Forum will be extending an invitation to more intermediary groups to become “associates” and develop more research and discussion with the FSA and within the intermediary sector.
“The Lender and Intermediary discussion group will focus on the practical Implications of implementation of the MMR proposals. The positive feedback which the Forum has received from the FSA, lender members and intermediary Associates underlines the importance of this initiative, and I am pleased that the CML will be taking a closer interest in its future activities.”
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