Minimum standards, maximum choice

You get a lot of people with their own directions and their own interests at heart, and arrange for them all to pull in the same direction; it’s not easy, but you end up with something very powerful which we hope will make brokers’ lives a lot easier.

The theory goes that if you save a broker five per cent of his or her time, it will lead to a five per cent increase in business fitted in during the year, five per cent more funding, greater growth of the lender and the small business – there is no downside. It’s simply – and I use that word optimistically – simply a case of getting a lot of disparate lenders to agree on a complex document. But the more work we put in at this late stage, the less work our members will have to do in the future.

Once this meets with the approval of the full panel, we’ll be able to roll it out at our AGM, share it with our members, and explain that this doesn’t only help them in the daily specifics of their day-job, but also in the general sense of acting as a security blanket; a reassurance, if you like, that the FCA will look kindly on their business practices. And once a broker can see that there’s consistency in the requirements of a wide range of lenders, he/she is more likely to look at the whole menu, not just the dishes he/she usually orders. The end result will hopefully be that we end up seeing a broader range of funding being arranged in the second half of the year.