Key Partnerships:
In December 2020, Key Partnerships launched their second ‘Introducing the Introducers’ Report, which found that over half of all equity release referrals now come from mortgage intermediaries. It also highlighted that the market remained robust, despite the Covid-19 pandemic as mortgage brokers were continuing to diversify their client offering.
Additionally, the data from Key Partnerships showed that between 2017/18 and 2019/20 there was a 47 per cent increase in the number of introducers entering the market. This slowed as the impact of the pandemic hit, with 1 per cent fewer introducers signing up on a monthly basis in 2020 compared to 2019.
With growing interest in referral opportunities, Key Partnerships announced its extended relationship with SimplyBiz and Paradigm. The partnerships aim to help brokers and advisers grow the range of product areas on which they can offer support.
more2life
As a leading equity release lender, more2life is focused on supporting advisers in their mission to deliver better financial outcomes to their clients – especially at this challenging time. Significant time, focus and people power has gone into improving systems and processes to ensure that we can help an adviser move their client’s case from application to completion as swiftly as possible.
As part of this, more2life promoted Steve Dodd to Director of Operations with responsibility for managing the smooth processing of business, from initial advance to drawdowns and further lending. Product innovation has also been a continued focus at more2life with the launch of new lending solutions such as our ‘Capital Choice Ultra Lite’ product, a lifetime mortgage aimed at homeowners looking to secure substantial loans against high value properties.
Finally, more2life continued to share the insights in its Vulnerability Report which was published in Q4 of 2020 and Stuart Wilson (Corporate Marketing Director) will be working with the London Institute of Banking and Finance on a Seminar which gets under the skin of this issue.
Key (Including The Equity Release Experts)
Continuing with the revamped Market Monitor, the recent report highlights that older homeowners released more than £3.4 billion in property wealth in 2020, with most of the money used to strengthen their finances and help families. Additionally, a strong Q4 saw the year end on a high with more than £1.1 billion released as trading conditions started to normalise.
Working with the Council, Key also released a new report- Pension / Property Paradox: revisiting the retirement confidence gap- focusing on trends in older homeowners’ financial plans and how confidence levels among this group around their finances have changed over the past 12 months. The report revealed that the proportion of homeowners aged 55+ that are worried about running out of money in retirement has increased to 34%, up from 27% a year earlier.
We were delighted that our work to support customers and colleagues through a challenging period was recognised through Key being named ‘Later Life Broker of the Year’ at the recent Mortgage Introducer Awards and at the British Mortgage Awards, James Hood, an adviser at The Equity Release Experts – part of Key – won the ‘Later Life Lending Broker’ category.
Air Group
Air Group has announced a record breaking performance for 2020. Highlights include in excess of 9000 completions, doubling the size of the Air Academy and substantial increases across the board on KFIs , new members, website activity and huge increase in broker support from the ‘AiR Support’ team in Gloucester. Air were shortlisted for nine National awards in 2020 and said it was delighted to win consecutively the “Best Product Sourcing” in the Lender Benchmark awards.
Plans for 2021 are being rolled out with specific focus on:
- Promoting & highlighting training and support for new advisers in the sector
- Focus on enhanced commercial benefits from firms who aspire to increase business this year
- Further enhancements to the Air rewards programme for members (having paid out in excess of £30,000) to use for charity, environmental or consumer benefits.
- Expanding the “large case concierge” service and Procuration fee checker service
- A 52 week programme of member training to support members on Regulatory issues raised in FCA recent works, working closely with the Equity Release Councils’ standards.
- Substantial investment in technology development to further improve Air Sourcing leading market position as the leading multi award winning platform
- Member research to lead development agenda based on advisers needs
Stuart Wilson, CEO of Air Group said:
“2020 has been a challenging year for so many advisers and firms, in March we quickly adapted to support our members and expanded our support team and resources, suspending all Academy fees and supporting members with our “cashflow counts” campaign, as well as returning substantial amounts through our rewards programme. 2021 has begun with further challenges, but we are confident the future for our sector is a hugely positive one.
“Our market leading offering for advisers through our Club, sourcing and Academy offerings will be developed in line with the needs of our members, but this year will be very focused on consumer outcomes, personal and commercial development for advisers and developing a broad ‘Later Life lending’ proposition, built around strong and robust processes and technology that deliver customer outcome excellence. We have a wide range of exciting announcements to be made throughout 2021 and we would like to send out a massive thankyou to our members who have contributed. Air Group have spent 14 years uniting the voices of, and 2020 was a true reflection of what we can achieve together.”
