HSBC to end its whole-of-market advice offering with John Charcol
Share
HSBC has severed ties with John Charcol and decided not to continue with its whole-of-market offering through the brokerage.
Its in-branch Mortgage Matcher trial with John Charcol is coming to an end on December 18. HSBC says the trial has been popular with clients who used the service and a success for HSBC.
But it says it will focus on its direct mortgage proposition for the immediate future.
The bank says options for the development of a whole-of-market mortgage proposition are being considered and ideas from the project are to be developed.
HSBC launched the trial in March 2009. Borrowers were given the choice of seeing an HSBC adviser for free or paying £150 to speak to a whole-of-market adviser.
A spokesman for HSBC says: “This was only a trial and was never meant to be an ongoing arrangement. We’ve had some good ideas from this but our direct proposition is strong. We only have a finite amount of resources to fund mortgages so the decision has been taken to focus on our direct proposition after December 18.”
The Mortgage Matcher service will close to new business across the 20 branches taking part in the trial on December 18 and loan applica-tions before that will be processed.
Danny Lovey, proprietor of The Mortgage Practitioner, says: “I always thought John Charcol was getting into bed with the devil. HSBC is a direct lender and I don’t think you can have it both ways.”
If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Mortgage Strategy and Follow @mortgagestrat
