Abbey for Intermediaries moves to one intermediary brand
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Abbey for Intermediaries has announced that all its intermediary mortgages will be branded Abbey from October 15.
Alan Mathewson, managing director of intermediary distribution and Santander Private Banking (UK), says: “Consolidating our intermediary mortgage business through the Abbey brand will enable us to align our product offering and increase efficiency. Our number one priority at this time is improving our service levels and focusing all our resources on one brand will help us achieve this quickly.
“Abbey for Intermediaries is a strong brand whose commitment and support to the intermediary market has never wavered over the difficult years. We believe the integration of our intermediary offering will help us provide the service and product offering to enable us to become the intermediary lender of choice.”
New Alliance & Leicester mortgage applications can continue to be submitted until October 15, although to assist the transition to one brand, it says it will be making some changes over the next few weeks.
The first of which is that it will no longer be accepting applications from new Alliance & Leicester mortgage customers over 75% LTV from close of business today.
Abbey for Intermediaries is offering an additional 0.02% for all new Abbey business placed between August 5 2010 and October 31 2010.
Abbey for Intermediaries is also launching a two-year fix through its key account partners tomorrow, offering a rate of 3.90% with no fee and available up to 75% LTV to homebuyers.
The product, which has a maximum advance of £550,000, comes with a free basic valuation and £250 cashback on completion for homebuyers. It estimates that over 90% of the intermediary market will be able to access it.
It says it will also be announcing other enhancements to its product range over the coming months.
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Readers' comments (19)
Anonymous | 5 Aug 2010 9:58 am
Why are they closing a perfectly good system and service and replacing it with, well Abbey service!!
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damian crowther | 5 Aug 2010 10:21 am
I have found A&L to be significantly better than shabbey for the last 12 months or do, however they have had issues in the past.... moving processing centres from wigan to leicester to belfast and back again etc.
It will be interesting to see if service levels improve. Don't hold your breath
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Anonymous | 5 Aug 2010 10:22 am
Entirely expected, but I despair. Abbey used to be one of my favourite lenders to deal with, but over the last year or so I dread having to place business with them. Appalling service levels topped with a superior attitude & systems and procedures seemingly designed to be as obstructive as possible are hardly going to be improved with this development.
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Anonymous | 5 Aug 2010 10:31 am
Alliance & Leicester have more flexible criteria than Abbey, income multiples for an example. Are they going to integrate these or will they simply resort to Abbey's current inflexible lending? Service levels must also improve...
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Anonymous | 5 Aug 2010 10:33 am
I can't remember the last time an appplication with Abbey was processed smoothly, the service levels are shocking. A&L have had problems recently, but were always above Abbey in terms of ease of processing. Soon we will have only 2-3 main lenders, controlling the market completely...and choosing who THEY want to deal with.
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Pidge | 5 Aug 2010 10:36 am
Can see why they are doing this but totally agree with the comments about the Abbey they are a nightmare to deal with
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Anonymous | 5 Aug 2010 10:59 am
Just having the two brands means they can dual price easier
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mic2002 | 5 Aug 2010 11:15 am
ammm maybe I've missed something but doesn't this just mean they've closed off A&L to brokers? I assume this brand will continue to exist for direct customers...?? If so this is a worrying development.
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Anonymous | 5 Aug 2010 11:15 am
I have not had any issues with Abbeys service levels, submitted 3 cases in the last 3 weeks and with the exception of one (which admittedly was a bit more complex) they all went to offer within 10 days. The lending criteria will be interesting...
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Anon | 5 Aug 2010 12:10 pm
Abbey has changed over the last few months and for the better, they are now 24 hours on faxes and underwriting. I submitted a case on Monday and was agreed on Wednesday. Call when you have a problem and they will do their best to help. Every lender has had problems in the past give them a chance
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