Brokers can expect more support from Nationwide Building Society after the lender moved to regionalise its intermediary teams.
Across both the Nationwide and The Mortgage Works teams, there are now more than 50 business development managers as well as 40 business development advisers to support inquiries from brokers and advisers.
The building society stated it aimed to provide greater consistency in its contact with brokers by restructuring into regional teams and investing in its phone systems and chat service.
Post-restructure, intermediary calls will be routed through to a dedicated team for the regions. This will allow the team to have expertise regarding their remit, which is particularly important for places such as Scotland which has different rules, the lender stated.
Andy Dean, head of intermediary support and new build, said: "The changes demonstrate Nationwide and TMW’s commitment to the intermediary sector.
"We’re investing in our teams, we’re listening to brokers and are focussing on offering teams of dedicated experts to support intermediaries’ pre-submission queries."
Last year, the society partially put its profit fall down to a £31m investment in technology and confirmed it would invest an additional £1.3bn over the next five years to ‘transform’ its technology estate and capabilities.
Carl Shave, director at Just Mortgage Brokers, said: "Regional expertise can play a significant role in a lender's understanding of its broker’s needs, and can only be seen as a positive move by Nationwide to factor this in to their intermediary support services.
"However, although I believe this change will be welcomed by the intermediary industry, ultimately a broker's need is for that of continuity in underwriting and the confidence that they have the back up of a team or individual with the ability to listen and discuss cases on individual merits rather than simply quote criteria."
imogen.tew@ft.com
