JLM Mortgage Services has announced the launch of a campaign by its appointed representative (AR) firm, Greenacre Financial Services, to help more deaf and hard of hearing people secure mortgage advice.

Greenacre hopes the focus on the advice needs of deaf and hard of hearing people will see other advisory practices training staff in British Sign Language (BSL). The firm also hopes to encourage advisers to actively market to the deaf community, which it described is an “underserved borrower demographic”.

The idea for the campaign came from Greenacre managing director, Greg Stanworth, following a conversation with a member of his team, Matt Butler who is able to communicate fluently in BSL and can help clients who are either deaf or hard of hearing with their mortgage needs.

Stanworth said: “I am so proud that we are able to offer advice to clients who are hard of hearing or deaf. It’s great to be able to reach out to a wider audience and to help individuals feel more comfortable in what can be a challenging area.

“Having observed Matt, our specialist, communicate with a deaf client, it was wonderful to see how happy and relieved they were when discussing their mortgage needs with someone able to sign. We are extremely passionate about helping these underserved clients and would urge other firms to look at what they might do in this area.”

JLM Mortgage Services is an authorised network offering both experienced and new advisers, as well as AR firms, access to a range of mortgage lenders and protection providers.

The network’s head of mortgage finance, Sebastian Murphy, added: “Diversity and inclusion has taken on new meaning in the mortgage advice market, particularly over the course of the last few years, and it is wonderful to see Greenacre leading the way in terms of the advice services it can provide to hard of hearing and deaf people.

“I think we would all agree that we have potentially neglected the needs of these clients and we are fully behind Greenacre’s campaign to ensure more people receive the advice they are entitled to. We’ll be sharing this will all JLM AR firms and would hope it acts as a catalyst for other advisory firms to offer similar services.”

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