Leader: Still time to have your say
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In the first week of Mortgage Strategy’s Fight For Our Industry campaign, a whopping 738 of you have already put your names to our petition that we hope to take to the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority.
The Mortgage Market Review has the potential to radically alter the shape of the UK mortgage market. If that is to the detriment of mortgage brokers, consumers will be the ultimate losers.
The mortgage broking sector has already been decimated by the credit crunch. Current estimates are that intermediary numbers have fallen by two-thirds in the past three years.
Now, the FSA’s paper on responsible lending has the potential to redefine the way mortgages are transacted. And worse may be to come, with the FSA’s upcoming paper on sales and distribution. As Robert Sinclair, director of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, said in his blog on Mortgage Strategy Online last week, the industry has been asked by the FSA to respond to its paper on lending without knowing what exactly its ideas are on how mortgages are sold and distributed. It’s vital that the FSA doesn’t legislate a sector already damaged by the economic crisis out of existence .
But we still have time to make our voices heard. For example, if lenders truly felt the game was up for fast-track why have they not already started to recruit staff en masse to deal with the volume of cases they will have to process? The FSA says that 43% of cases in 2009 and Q1 2010 were on a non-income verified basis - killing off fast-track would be a service nightmare for lenders. But many are holding fire as they lobby the regulator and put their cases across.
We can still fight for the future of our industry. If you want to have your say, add your name to our petition today.
