The Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC) has revealed plans to target more than 200 signatories by the end of 2022.

The target was announced by co-founder of the MIMHC, Jason Berry, who was speaking during a webinar hosted by SimplyBiz as part of their ‘Vulnerable Client Week’.

Launched in October 2021, the MIMHC is a not-for-profit collaboration between seven co-founders. These include Brightstar, Chartwell FS, Coreco, Crystal Specialist Finance, Knowledge Bank, Landbay and SimplyBiz.      

“We have a real cross section of current signatories which I am delighted to see,” said Berry. “These range from small directly authorised (DA) brokerages to regional building societies, specialist lenders, mortgage clubs and challenger banks.

“Signatories simply pledge to have a mental health focus within their organisation and commit to keep conversations going so people affected do not suffer in silence.”

Berry referenced previous survey results, conducted by Crystal Specialist finance in 2021 among 200 people, which suggested 73% of respondents said their company did not participate in any mental health or wellbeing initiatives. The findings also indicated that 10% of all sick days taken the previous year were as a direct result of poor mental health. 


CEO of SimplyBiz Mortgages, Martin Reynolds, added: “Poor mental health affects people at all levels of our society and it is a disease which is not mutually exclusive to a specific industry. For years many companies in our sector have either ignored or had internal wellbeing practices that were not signposted well enough for staff.

“MIMHC therefore aims to proactively increase mental health awareness to help firms with this change and crucially share best practice tips so open and honest conversations are encouraged. I particularly like the idea of coffee roulette where participating staff are randomly matched for 30-minute conversations with colleagues they might not otherwise talk to.”

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