Banks have “no plans” to make changes to proc fees

Published: 30/05/2012

All five members of the panel at last week’s Mortgage Business Expo in Manchester have confirmed they are not planning on tying the procuration fees they pay introducers to the quality of business submitted.

Last month many lenders cut their proc fees stirring fears within the industry that the dedicated core of mortgage introducers who offer clients free financial advice could see their bread and butter all but disappear.

These worries were augmented after it was announced a high street bank had developed a metric which evaluated different elements of introducer business, from the quality of case submitted to how the introducer interacted with their clients.

However news from the Expo last week has abated these fears.

Barclays, Nationwide, Platform, GE Money Home Lenders and Virgin Money have all stated they do not plan to change the way proc fees are paid; Sarah Green, Head of National Accounts at Barclays, confirming it “will not be making changes to proc fees” and James Chidgey, Senior Manager of Corporate Accounts at Nationwide collaborating when he said it has “no plans at all to do that”.

The Director of Sales and Proposition at Platform, Lee Gladwell, labelled this new idea as “crap” before continuing more eloquently to describe proc fees as “a valid part of the industry”. He also dubbed the practice of tying proc fees to quality as an “administrative nightmare”.

Content correct at time of publication