Dudley Building Society has launched new five-year fixed rate expat buy-to-let (BTL) products. The new five-year BTL products start from 5.59% and 5.89% at 70% and 80% LTV respectively. Both products come with a £1,999 arrangement and early repayments charges of 4%, 3%, 2%, and 1% over the five-year term. Borrowers can also make overpayments of up to 10% per year without penalty. The changes come as The Dudley continues to refine its expat BTL range, ensuring that brokers have access to products for clients investing in or remortgaging UK properties from overseas.

Wesleyan Group has appointed Faraz Tasnim as chief operating officer (COO) to support the next phase of its growth strategy. He joined the financial services firm from Quilter in 2022 as group transformation director. Tasnim brings over two decades of experience across transformation, commercial finance and consulting roles, having served at businesses including Direct Line Group, Hastings Direct, Lloyds Banking Group and Rolls Royce. Tasnim was promoted to Wesleyan’s group chief transformation officer and became a member of its group executive committee in April 2024. In his new role, he will continue to strengthen Wesleyan’s capabilities as it looks to deepen relationships with its customer base.

SDKA has launched new automated valuation models (AVMs) for first-charge residential transactions to accelerate its time-to-cash. The bridging lender has introduced the service by utilising Hometrack, whose software harnesses 25 years of property data alongside AI-powered market intelligence. In a move designed to reassure applicants, the lender will ask every client to do a video walk around of the property with one of their underwriters. The launch comes after SDKA dropped its bridge 75 residential rate by 50 bps to 0.84% per month.

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