In Partnership with
Why there’s plenty
of life in later-life lending
No one denies these are challenging times, but there are reasons for the sector to feel positive, as the latest Mortgage Introducer Executive Insights discussion has heard
Scott Burman
Pure Retirement
Industry experts
Leon Diamond
LiveMore Capital
Fran Green
more2life
Trevor Baldwin
Baldwin Risk Partners
Scott Burman has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the property and finance industry, having worked in numerous roles with Norwich & Peterborough Building Society, and companies such as Lloyds TSB (as it was then) and Countrywide, working in the B2B division before moving into the mortgage services division as divisional mortgage services director for the Central and Anglia region. Away from work he lives in Suffolk with his wife and two children, who keep him very busy with various clubs and activities at the weekends. He is a follower of the Tractor Boys (Ipswich Town FC).
head of distribution,
Pure Retirement
Scott Burman
With an extensive finance background, Leon Diamond was previously a non-executive director at Responsible Lending Limited. In 2010, he founded Mansard Capital Management, a Malta-based investment manager and Mansard Capital LLP. Diamond sold the latter to AJ Bell, one of the UK’s largest investment platforms, before serving as Head of Investments. Since 2014, he’s been a co-investor with Sellar Development Fund, a property investment venture. Key transactions in London have included Canada Water, 42-44 Bermondsey Street, Grand Union House Camden and Seal House. Diamond’s successes have included a mixed-use, pre-planning development in Brisbane, Australia of 40 residential apartments.
CEO and founder,
LiveMore Capital
Leon Diamond
A sales and service professional of over 30 years’ standing, Fran Green began her career at a building society and has worked with providers, distributors and networks alike. She prides herself on being a strategic thinker, able to design, distribute and deliver effective sales plans. Green diversified to work in insurance but stepped back into the lending arena in 2016. Having dedicated herself to several lenders who offered solutions up to and into retirement, Green made a strategic decision to dedicate her career to lending in later life and joined Key Group in February 2020.
national accounts and networks manager, more2life
Fran Green
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Velit egestas vel ornare pellentesque ridiculus. Mauris tempor augue quis mattis suspendisse feugiat commodo posuere. Faucibus massa adipiscing nullam elit, ac vel accumsan. Phasellus eget ac dignissim fermentum ac placerat elit, metus. Nulla porttitor ante egestas molestie quis quam. Pharetra magna sit mauris tellus gravida rutrum libero sit. Justo orci cras euismod proin massa lorem ut. In non tellus phasellus faucibus ullamcorper nullam odio dui et.
Baldwin Risk Partners
Trevor Baldwin
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Tellus in penatibus condimentum malesuada ante vulputate nisi, arcu leo. Amet urna sapien purus vestibulum fermentum a. Cursus metus massa donec sed varius. Nunc enim sit morbi lacus, molestie et nunc. Nullam sed facilisi id malesuada. Ante purus velit, quam scelerisque ultrices scelerisque donec.
Velit egestas vel ornare pellentesque ridiculus. Mauris tempor augue quis mattis suspendisse feugiat commodo posuere. Faucibus massa adipiscing nullam elit, ac vel accumsan. Phasellus eget ac dignissim fermentum ac placerat elit, metus. Nulla porttitor ante egestas molestie quis quam. Pharetra magna sit mauris tellus gravida rutrum libero sit. Justo orci cras euismod proin massa lorem ut. In non tellus phasellus faucibus ullamcorper nullam odio dui et.
Vault Plus Mortgage and Finance Consultancy
David Merison
“Consumer demand for the product is absolutely still there. The more confident brokers get and the more confident consumers get ... the [more] opportunities will exist”
Scott Burman,
Pure Retirement
AS IS the case for most of the mortgage sector, this is a demanding time for the later-life market – though recent figures show there was a small but definite increase in demand for equity release in Q2 2023.
A total of 17,028 new and returning customers used these later-life products between April and June 2023 to unlock wealth from their homes, according to the Equity Release Council.
That was an increase of two percent, from 16,691 in Q1 2023, with a total of £664m released by new and returning customers between April and June.
To discuss the later-life market, Mortgage Introducer brought together three key industry experts to share their insights. They were Scott Burman, head of distribution at Pure Retirement; Leon Diamond, CEO and founder of LiveMore Capital; and Fran Green, national accounts and networks manager at more2life.
“We have customers who want to – or, more importantly, need to – borrow and need these facilities, and we've got funders who want to and need to lend”
Fran Green, more2life
“On a daily basis, we're getting inquiries from new brokers and large networks about the various options in later-life lending – it's not just equity release”
Leon Diamond,
LiveMore
Diamond believed that consumers are having to adjust to current interest rates.
“Our borrower demographic is used to paying above ten per cent, back in the 70s and 80s,” he offered. “I think what is important to realise, though, is serving interest during these times can really preserve equity in homes.”
Panellists turned their attention to housing criteria.
“It’s a fundamental and a very key part of our lending,” acknowledged Burman. “We spend a lot of time working with the broker to really understand that property, from looking at
“We have a very mature and experienced underwriting team. With some of our funders, we completely mandate it so we hold the pen and can make those decisions on our own.”
The discussion switched to affordability in the later-life market versus the mainstream mortgage sector.
Diamond said the difference was between the accumulating wealth of younger borrowers and the decumulating wealth of later-life borrowers. It’s necessary to take account of life events, such as helping children or grandchildren financially, or health issues as vulnerabilities potentially increase.
“It's very important to look at someone's entire assets,” he said.
Burman agreed, saying, “I think it can actually enhance the process for the consumer and the broker by doing a complete affordability check, whatever the solution might be.”
Green believed many more advisers were looking at affordability closely. She pointed out that the ability to make an ERC free overpayment was the latest addition to the Equity Release Council’s set of standards.
“Having experienced underwriters, who have trodden the boards a number of years and can recognise a good risk that may sit outside of policy but still makes good lending, is invaluable to us and the team,” she said.
Green explained that more2life’s platform enabled brokers to submit applications electronically and instruct valuations automatically. AI robots supported, rather than took the place of, human beings. “It’s very exciting,” she said.
Beginning our discussion, Diamond explained that LiveMore was a mortgage lender focused on the 50-to-90-plus range.
“We have the widest proposition in the market,” he said. “What we look to do is be a solutions provider. We fit the right product to the customer.”
Green suggested that while more2life was generally considered a single lender, it could be regarded as a panel of lenders.
“We have six different product lines, all designed to meet a different customer demographic, each of which has its own features, benefits, and also its own criteria and policy in relation to person and property,” she said.
Pure Retirement, said Burman, was an equity-release specialist that had been in business for ten years and enjoyed a great reputation.
“We're a tier-one lender in that space. We do have a second side to our business, which is where we service books,” he said. “The Equity Release Council data recently came out for half one and we
product. And that is where we see the added value of the time spent by the broker.”
Next up for debate was consumer duty and the impact it was having on later-life lending. Burman welcomed it as a means for the consumer to get to the right decision for them.
“I think it's a very bold and positive move by the regulator,” he declared. “I actually think it is a great opportunity for brokers to shine, to introduce more consumers education to the later-life lending space.”
Green concurred, believing that it would boost product innovation.
Equity release in Q2 2023
A total of 17,028 new and returning customers used equity release products between April and June 2023
know that it's broadly around half of what it was last year.
“But what we also know is that consumer demand for the product is absolutely still there. The more confident brokers get and the more confident consumers get in what is a more normalised market with these interest rates, I think the [more] opportunities will exist.”
Green picked up on this.
“You have got interest rates that are sitting where they are at the moment, but in fairness, the position of the rate today is actually the historic norm,” she suggested. “I do think there is an element of potential customer bias out there where they may have a perception that the rate isn't offering fair value, where it's not actually the case at all.”
flood checks and looking at title checks, [to] looking at Google Maps, really trying to understand it.”
Diamond said, “Over time, it's our plan to expand the housing criteria, where we see a number of people struggling because of, I’d say, the quite archaic views of some of the funders in the market historically.”
Green noted that security was “king” for more2life’s underwriters.
“Our risk increases over time, generally, with rolled-up interest, rather than decreases. So we really need to make sure that the property will withstand the test of time and still remain saleable in the future, at the point that mortgage comes to redeem.
Read on
“I think it's going to sharpen everybody's quill in terms of looking at those customer outcomes, both pre- and post-completion,” she said.
Diamond described the customer as being at the forefront of what his business did.
“Our job as a lender is to provide the right solution for the customer that depends on their needs,” he said. “We're seeing the focus with consumer duty to look at being able to do a credit underwrite and an income underwrite when assessing someone in later life.”
To what extent did the development of new technology drive best customer outcomes?
“We are dealing with people who statistically do become more vulnerable as they are getting older,” Diamond acknowledged.
As the discussion drew to a close, the panel considered the future of later-life lending.
Burman identified an “appetite externally from new funders to this market,” adding, “I certainly believe – after the short-term challenges that we will all get through as an industry – it's got a very bright future.”
Green agreed. “We have customers who want to – or, more importantly, need to – borrow and need these facilities, and we've got funders who want to and need to lend,” she pointed out. “I do think that this industry will expand its footprint into other demographics in order to help them with their later-life retirement aspirations.”
Diamond predicted, “We're going to see a spotlight around affordability – can people afford a mainstream mortgage in retirement?
“I see this as a focus, and this is going to expand the market in terms of lending by just giving customers more options. On a daily basis, we're getting inquiries from new brokers and large networks about the various options in later-life lending – it's not just equity release.”
Working with its intermediary partners, LiveMore Capital aims to help its clients, aged from over 50 to 90 plus, with a can-do approach to lending. It was launched in 2020, founded upon the belief that thousands of people in the UK can afford a mortgage, but that the industry didn’t provide enough options to help them do the things they loved in life. It is passionate about solving less straight forward cases, working collaboratively to find a way to say ‘yes’. A multiple award-winning lender, LiveMore currently holds the Later Life Lender of the year title from The Mortgage Introducer Awards.
Find out more
Since its launch in 2007, more2life has become an innovative specialist in the lifetime mortgage market and is now the second largest lender in its sector, providing flexible plans to the over 55s. Today, it manages more than £4 billion of lending and describes itself as providing the widest choice of products and services to customers. Helping people make the most of their retirement, more2life says it helps people transform the money tied up in their property into a tax-free cash lump sum that can give financial freedom. It is passionate about developing unique plans which can be tailored to people’s individual circumstances.
Find out more
A specialist equity release lender, Pure Retirement is driven by core values of honesty, simplicity and a responsibility to offer flexible lifetime mortgage products. It leads on adviser engagement through its partnership with the Equity Release Council and has launched MyPure, a platform that enables customers to manage their lifetime mortgage accounts online. Pure prides itself on having ‘the market’s largest Intermediary Sales division’ to cater for adviser needs, including regional BDMs and telephone-based BDMs. It has developed and grown a bespoke customer account servicing department to directly assist customers post-completion, overseeing a total portfolio in excess of £4bn.
Find out more
In Partnership with
Why there’s plenty of life in later-life lending
No one denies these are challenging times, but there are reasons for the later-life sector to feel positive, as the latest Mortgage Introducer Executive Insights discussion has heard
Read on
Trevor Baldwin
Baldwin Risk Partners
Fran Green
more2life
Leon Diamond
LiveMore Capital
Scott Burman
Pure Retirement
Industry experts
Scott Burman has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the property and finance industry, having worked in numerous roles with Norwich & Peterborough Building Society, and companies such as Lloyds TSB (as it was then) and Countrywide, working in the B2B division before moving into the mortgage services division as divisional mortgage services director for the Central and Anglia region. Away from work he lives in Suffolk with his wife and two children, who keep him very busy with various clubs and activities at the weekends. He is a follower of the Tractor Boys (Ipswich Town FC).
Pure Retirement
Scott Burman
With an extensive finance background, Leon Diamond was previously a non-executive director at Responsible Lending Limited. In 2010, he founded Mansard Capital Management, a Malta-based investment manager and Mansard Capital LLP. Diamond sold the latter to AJ Bell, one of the UK’s largest investment platforms, before serving as Head of Investments. Since 2014, he’s been a co-investor with Sellar Development Fund, a property investment venture. Key transactions in London have included Canada Water, 42-44 Bermondsey Street, Grand Union House Camden and Seal House. Diamond’s successes have included a mixed-use, pre-planning development in Brisbane, Australia of 40 residential apartments.
LiveMore Capital
Leon Diamond
A sales and service professional of over 30 years’ standing, Fran Green began her career at a building society and has worked with providers, distributors and networks alike. She prides herself on being a strategic thinker, able to design, distribute and deliver effective sales plans. Green diversified to work in insurance but stepped back into the lending arena in 2016. Having dedicated herself to several lenders who offered solutions up to and into retirement, Green made a strategic decision to dedicate her career to lending in later life and joined Key Group in February 2020.
more2life
Fran Green
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Tellus in penatibus condimentum malesuada ante vulputate nisi, arcu leo. Amet urna sapien purus vestibulum fermentum a. Cursus metus massa donec sed varius. Nunc enim sit morbi lacus, molestie et nunc. Nullam sed facilisi id malesuada. Ante purus velit, quam scelerisque ultrices scelerisque donec.
Velit egestas vel ornare pellentesque ridiculus. Mauris tempor augue quis mattis suspendisse feugiat commodo posuere. Faucibus massa adipiscing nullam elit, ac vel accumsan. Phasellus eget ac dignissim fermentum ac placerat elit, metus. Nulla porttitor ante egestas molestie quis quam. Pharetra magna sit mauris tellus gravida rutrum libero sit. Justo orci cras euismod proin massa lorem ut. In non tellus phasellus faucibus ullamcorper nullam odio dui et.
Baldwin Risk Partner
Trevor Baldwin
In Partnership with
Why there’s plenty of life in later-life lending
No one denies these are challenging times, but there are reasons for the later-life sector to feel positive, as the latest Mortgage Introducer Executive Insights discussion has heard
Read on
Trevor Baldwin
Baldwin Risk Partners
Fran Green
more2life
Leon Diamond
LiveMore Capital
Scott Burman
Pure Retirement
Industry experts
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Tellus in penatibus condimentum malesuada ante vulputate nisi, arcu leo. Amet urna sapien purus vestibulum fermentum a. Cursus metus massa donec sed varius. Nunc enim sit morbi lacus, molestie et nunc. Nullam sed facilisi id malesuada. Ante purus velit, quam scelerisque ultrices scelerisque donec.
Velit egestas vel ornare pellentesque ridiculus. Mauris tempor augue quis mattis suspendisse feugiat commodo posuere. Faucibus massa adipiscing nullam elit, ac vel accumsan. Phasellus eget ac dignissim fermentum ac placerat elit, metus. Nulla porttitor ante egestas molestie quis quam. Pharetra magna sit mauris tellus gravida rutrum libero sit. Justo orci cras euismod proin massa lorem ut. In non tellus phasellus faucibus ullamcorper nullam odio dui et.
Baldwin Risk Partners
Trevor Baldwin
A sales and service professional of over 30 years’ standing, Fran Green began her career at a building society and has worked with providers, distributors and networks alike. She prides herself on being a strategic thinker, able to design, distribute and deliver effective sales plans. Green diversified to work in insurance but stepped back into the lending arena in 2016. Having dedicated herself to several lenders who offered solutions up to and into retirement, Green made a strategic decision to dedicate her career to lending in later life and joined Key Group in February 2020.
more2life
Fran Green
With an extensive finance background, Leon Diamond was previously a non-executive director at Responsible Lending Limited. In 2010, he founded Mansard Capital Management, a Malta-based investment manager and Mansard Capital LLP. Diamond sold the latter to AJ Bell, one of the UK’s largest investment platforms, before serving as Head of Investments. Since 2014, he’s been a co-investor with Sellar Development Fund, a property investment venture. Key transactions in London have included Canada Water, 42-44 Bermondsey Street, Grand Union House Camden and Seal House. Diamond’s successes have included a mixed-use, pre-planning development in Brisbane, Australia of 40 residential apartments.
LiveMore Capital
Leon Diamond
Scott Burman has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the property and finance industry, having worked in numerous roles with Norwich & Peterborough Building Society, and companies such as Lloyds TSB (as it was then) and Countrywide, working in the B2B division before moving into the mortgage services division as divisional mortgage services director for the Central and Anglia region. Away from work he lives in Suffolk with his wife and two children, who keep him very busy with various clubs and activities at the weekends. He is a follower of the Tractor Boys (Ipswich Town FC).
Pure Retirement
Scott Burman
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Adjusting
Published 18 September 2023
There was a slight increase of 2% in active customers from 16,691 in Q1 2023
The number of returning drawdown customers making new withdrawals from existing loans rose marginally by 1% in Q2 2023 compared to Q1 2023
A total of £664m was unlocked by new and returning customers between April and June
Source: Equity Release Council
Source: Equity Release Council
The number of new plans agreed for Q2 2023 was 6,682 down by 1% from 6,766 in the previous quarter
Equity release in Q2 2023
New customer numbers fell to 2,004 in April from 2,384 in March, before recovering in May and June to 2,117 and 2,462 respectively
52% of new customers opted for drawdown lifetime mortgages, taking an initial withdrawal up-front with more held in reserve for future use, while 48% of customers opted for a single lump sum
The uptick towards the end of the quarter suggests a level of certainty returning to the market
Burman was keen to correct any misconceptions that advisers might have about manual underwriting.
“It works superbly, and doesn't delay cases,” he emphasised. “It adds value to the space we offer.”
Diamond said that while LiveMore supported automated decisions, where specific questions needed to be asked, an underwriter was always on hand, enjoying a strong relationship with brokers.
“Once we've been able to capture the client's assets and understand their income, if they get rejected by one of our products,” he said, “we are able to suggest a different type of
Exciting
“Early on in starting LiveMore, I realised that building our technology would allow us to innovate at speed,” Diamond explained. “When we decided to move into the equity release market, we were able to build from front end all the way through to credit model and underwriting an equity release journey and servicing in under two months.”
Burman told the panel, “We're looking to use tech in how we automate decision-making processes, plugging in different parts of API with our third parties like solicitors and surveyors. So the actual process to achieve an equity-release loan is seamless.”
Value
The debate moved to the importance of a holistic service for customers, beyond their initial business.
“Post-completion, it's vital that we continue to interact with our consumers, particularly in the age bracket that we’re in,” said Burman. “I think ongoing service of customers in our space is probably something that's going to be talked about a lot more.”
Green pointed out, “More and more buyers are coming back for that further borrowing, be it drawdown or further advances, and there are more people being affected by additional life events, as they are living longer and using their equity release in their lives for longer.”
LiveMore, meanwhile, worked closely with brokers to contact its customers on a yearly basis, to get updates on their needs.
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