'There’s still plenty of demand there, it’s just not always straightforward': Chris Blewitt, Darlington BS

FR: Darlington has just reported a record year, with £234m in lending and assets now over £1bn. What’s driven that performance?

It’s been a strong year, but for me it’s more about why it’s come through when it has. Because when you look at the backdrop, the market hasn’t exactly made things easy, with rates moving around, affordability still quite tight for a lot of borrowers, and a bit of uncertainty sitting in the background as well.

So to see that level of lending emerge tells you there’s still plenty of demand there, it’s just not always straightforward. For us, it comes down to being clear on where we want to play, focusing on areas like expat, foreign-currency and more complex income, where cases need a bit more thought.

At the same time, there has definitely been a step-change in how we’re perceived in the broker community. You go out now and you’re not starting from scratch in every conversation, and people already have an idea of what we do, which is a good place to be. On the flip side, it also means you’ve got to make sure the experience backs that up.

FR: How much of that growth is being shaped by broker demand?

A strong proportion. If you sit down and speak to brokers, they’ll tell you pretty quickly where things are getting stuck, and it’s not that there’s no business, it’s just that some cases don’t quite fit in the way they used to.

Foreign-currency and expat mortgages are probably the best examples of that. Demand is still strong, borrowers are more mobile and incomes more varied, but cases don’t always sit neatly. That means brokers need a bit more flexibility to get them over the line.

And that’s really where we’ve tried to respond, not just acknowledge it, but actually make changes that help in practice. So when you see things like loan-to-value changes coming through, or tweaks to how we assess cases, that’s usually coming directly from those conversations.

FR: You’ve increased the loan-to-value on foreign currency mortgages to 90%. How significant is that change?

For me, it’s two-fold, and it probably reflects what’s happening more broadly in the market as well. On one side, it builds on what we were already doing, particularly around first-time buyers, and it gives a bit more room where it’s needed.

On the other side, it’s very much driven by what brokers are seeing on the ground. In a lot of these cases, it’s not a fundamental issue with the borrower, it’s just that last bit of headroom that’s missing, so you’re not fixing something that’s broken, you’re just giving it the space it needs to work.

As we were already active in that space, it’s not about changing direction, it’s more about backing ourselves and making sure we’re properly supporting the cases that are already coming through. In a market like this, those smaller, more targeted changes can actually have quite a big impact.

FR: You’ve also made rate reductions across parts of the range. How does pricing fit into the wider strategy?

It’s no secret that pricing impacts volume, particularly in a market where people are looking very closely at overall cost. But at the same time, it’s not the whole story because brokers are looking at things in a slightly more rounded way now.

It’s not just, “what’s the cheapest rate?”, it’s also, “how likely is this to get done, and how much work is it going to take to get there?”. And that’s probably the key point, as there’s nothing worse than submitting a case that looks good on paper, and then it becomes hard work once it’s in.

As a lender, it’s about getting that balance right in terms of being competitive enough to be in that initial conversation, and then also making sure we can follow it through properly. If you can do both, you tend to build a bit more trust over time.

FR: Darlington has also been investing in technology. What role is that playing in the lending process?

It’s probably a good example of where we’ve tried to take a fairly practical approach. Historically, we’ve not automated certain parts of the process simply because the rules just couldn’t handle some of the cases we deal with, and they’re not always straightforward.

What we’ve done now is strip that back and rebuild it, and it’s still being tested, but it’s working well. In simple terms, it means the system can deal with the more straightforward cases, the stuff that’s fairly vanilla, even for us, and then the underwriter focuses on the cases that actually need their specialist skills.

Which is how it should be, using people where they add the most value, not asking them to check things that don’t need that level of input. From a broker’s point of view, that should mean quicker decisions where it’s appropriate, and a more considered approach where it’s needed, and there is a bit of a “you said, we did” in that as well.

FR: Where are you seeing the most opportunity in the current market?

Buy-to-let is still there, particularly with experienced landlords who understand how to operate when things are a bit tighter. Alongside that, expat, foreign currency and later life lending are probably the areas where we see the most opportunity.

The common thread across all of those is that they’re not completely straightforward. These are cases where you need to understand what’s going on, not just run it through a process, and that’s where a bit more thought upfront tends to make a difference.

If you get that right early on, you can usually structure something that works. If you don’t, that’s when things start to fall over further down the line, so the opportunity is there, it just needs a slightly different approach.

FR: Broker expectations have changed over the past couple of years. How are you seeing that play out?

It’s definitely more measured now, and you can see that in how brokers are approaching cases. There’s a bit more thinking before submission, a bit more sense-checking of whether something actually stacks up before it goes in.

That’s really just a reflection of what the market’s been like, because when things are a bit less predictable, people naturally take a bit more care. At the same time, expectations around clarity have increased as well.

Brokers want to know where they stand, and how something is likely to be looked at, before they commit too much time to it. It all comes back to consistency, making sure that what we say early on actually lines up with what happens later.

FR: Finally, what can brokers expect from Darlington over the coming months?

More of the same, but with a bit more intent behind it. We’ll continue to focus on areas where we’ve already got a bit of momentum and a clear understanding of how those cases work and look at how we can develop these areas further through criteria and service enhancements.

Ultimately, it comes back to something quite simple. If a broker brings us a case, they want to know it’s going to be looked at properly, and that they’re going to get a clear answer. If we can keep doing that consistently, then everything else will fall in line.