News in brief - 11 January 2024

Roma Finance has appointed Amer Watson and Shahed Popat as business development managers. Watson joins from MS Lending and brings experience in the financial service market, having spent the last five years of his career in the bridging lending space. He will cover Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. Shahed joins from Blue Square Capital, with five years’ experience in the specialist property finance market. As part of the role, he will cover London and the South East. Roma Finance has also appointed Claudine Reynolds and Alan Collins to relationship management roles to focus on partnerships and growing business with affiliates.

Pepper Money has cut prices across its entire product range, reducing rates by as much as 0.98%. For customers with recent adverse, there are reduction of Pepper 6 up to 80% LTV, with five-year rates being cut by up to 0.96% and 0.81% on two-year fixed products. Rates have also been cut across the lender’s affordable homeownership ranges, with reductions of up to 0.88% on five-year fixes across shared ownership and right to buy products up to 75% LTV and first homes up to 70% LTV.

Bank of Ireland for Intermediaries has launched a range of enhancements to its product transfer and further advance offerings, including raising its procuration fee for product transfers and further advances from 0.25% to 0.30%. The increase in procuration fee comes after significant investment in Bank of Ireland’s intermediary online platform to improve the experience for intermediaries and their customers. Recent enhancements include the introduction of the ‘working with us’ hub which provides access to all the resources needed for all stages of the application process and the launch of the intermediary live chat facility, providing support with pre-application queries. Bank of Ireland has also recently released new product transfer rates and has enabled intermediaries and customers to confirm product transfer rates up to six months before the end of their current deal, which can be completed through its online product transfer service.



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