TCF Lender Forum relaunch  - January 2011 

Major mortgage lenders and the CML throw their weight behind TCF Lender Forum’s ongoing support for mortgage intermediaries

A group of 8 Mortgage Lenders have confirmed their ongoing support for the TCF Lender Forum and TCF Info (www.tcfinfo.co.uk), the website dedicated to supporting intermediaries in treating customers fairly (TCF). However, in a new move, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) will be taking an active role as well in the next 12 months. The move is to assist both lenders and their distribution partners in preparing for the changing regulatory environment as the mortgage market review progresses in 2011.

Industry support for the TCF Lender Forum and www.tcfinfo.co.uk now accounts for 21 lending brands in 2010/2011, which indicates a continued commitment to their intermediary partners from a full range of mortgage lenders in the market.

The Lender Forum was established in November 2005 as a result of a shared desire by its Lender members to offer mortgage intermediaries a free, single, neutral and highly practical source of information on outcome based regulation.

Since its launch in June 2006, www.tcfinfo.co.uk has earned praise from mortgage intermediaries for its ‘no nonsense’ approach to explaining how regulation applies to them, and for its range of user-friendly guides, checklists, tips and tools which can be downloaded for free and adapted for business or training purposes. The TCF Info website currently receives around 11,000 visits a month and has a database of 6000 registered brokers who receive a newsletter and updates on regulatory developments. The site also carries out periodic online surveys into brokers’ experiences of regulation and provides follow up feedback to registered brokers.

The CML will use input from the Forum to strengthen their broader representational work. As a result, this involvement with the TCF Lender Forum will give the CML an opportunity to communicate with the wider industry audience, including intermediaries, at a crucial time, with a mortgage market review consultation under way on distribution with responses in February 2011.

The Forum will continue to be chaired and organised by Frank Eve Consulting Limited, but with active CML involvement in meetings.

Michael Coogan, Director General of the CML, said: “With Frank Eve’s assistance, we are looking to build on the website’s success over the last few years to provide ongoing support to the intermediaries at a difficult time for them in the market. We see the Forum as playing a potentially critical role in establishing more effective industry-wide collaboration on non-competitive issues of strategic importance, in parallel with our ongoing discussions with AMI.” 

Frank Eve, the Chairman of the TCF Lender Forum said “The Forum will be extending an invitation to more intermediary groups to become “associates” and develop more research and discussion with the FSA and within the intermediary sector. The Lender and Intermediary discussion group will focus on the practical Implications of implementation of the MMR proposals. The positive feedback which the Forum has received from the FSA, lender members and intermediary Associates underlines the importance of this initiative, and I am pleased that the CML will be taking a closer interest in its future activities.”