December 2019
By Masthaven
lan Margolis, Director of Bridging
“2019 was a very successful year for Masthaven’s short-term lending team. Whilst we continued to grow our loan book there have been plenty of initiatives going on behind the scenes to improve our service proposition and our broker service experience.
“The positive feedback from our brokers has been fantastic – but we are not resting on our laurels. 2020 promises to be even more exciting and we have several significant projects that will be unveiled throughout the coming year; some top secret, but others such as our state-of-the-art Broker Portal that will enable brokers to receive online and instant automated decisions in principle.”
Richard Deacon, Sales Director
“2019 has been a year of “will it ever happen?” and I think it started off frustrating people, then annoying them, and then everyone thought “stuff this”, let’s just crack on shall we!
“Travelling the country as I do with my team, it’s become more apparent than ever that brokers are looking to specialist finance for a solution for their clients – and that education of those brokers is more important than ever before to make sure that they can grab every opportunity to meet those clients’ changing needs.
“Looking ahead, we can’t wait to kickstart 2020 with our new joined-up sales team. Bringing our long- and short-term lending offerings together is in answer to broker feedback - many of our intermediary partners are interested in diversifying their businesses into the short-term lending market, so it’s a strategic growth area for us.”
Patrick Davey, Head of Development Finance
“We’ve become better at talking to our customers and understanding problems they are encountering on their build so we can try and take a commercial view on the projects – rather than rigidly sticking to our lending policy – to arrive at a decision that’s mutually beneficial for all.
“We’re also visiting the development sites much more frequently than we did in the past. I’m sure our customers appreciate that we’re taking an interest in their builds, plus it helps us when reviewing accounts if we have actually seen the security. We don’t have to just rely on surveyors’ reports.
Lizzie Lane, Head of Lending
“From an underwriting perspective, 2019 has seen the team working harder than ever. Specialist is moving into the mainstream – therefore we are working hard to create more opportunity for brokers to write more business.
“This year we’ve had a massive drive towards improving our broker and customer experience, with clearer communication being given by the team on pipeline cases which has been welcomed based on the positive feedback the team has been receiving.
“That aside we have spent much of 2019 working on exciting new initiatives for short term which should hopefully play a key part in our performance and stature within the industry in 2020. So, for now….’watch this space!’”