Robert Owen close to launching lender

18 October 2010 | By Natalie Thomas

Owen hopes to launch the lender at the beginning of 2011 and has recruited a team of up to 15 staff, some former colleagues at White Label Lending.

The lender will focus on secured loans but could also offer bridging finance.

Owen is applying to the Office of Fair Trading for the venture’s consumer credit licence.

He says: “We are negotiating with funders and hope to have it in place in the next six months.”

Phoebus Soft­ware will be providing the technology for Chambers Harris.

The lender’s maxi­mum LTV is likely to be 80%, although Owen says it is too early to talk in detail about  product offerings.

Chambers Harris will be distributing products through specialist secured loan brokers. But Owen says that, in the current difficult economic climate, mortgage brokers should be offering secured loans as a viable option to remortgaging.

He says: “Brokers need to have more than one tool in the toolbox. Secured loans have an early repayment charge of only one month of the interest on the loan – it’s a good way to borrow on a short-term basis.”

Owen was chief executive of White Label Lending, a subsidiary of the West Bromwich Building Society, between May 2007 and September 2009.

Before this he was chief executive of specialist lender London Mortgage Company, sold to Lehman Brothers in 2006.

Owen also holds the position of non-executive director of the Islamic Bank of Britain.

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