Simon Cockerill has been appointed as commercial director of mortgages at Paragon Bank, as the bank looks to build on its specialist lending expertise.

He joins Paragon with 28 years’ experience across mortgage sales and distribution, having most recently spent almost nine years as head of sales at OSB Group. He has also held senior roles spanning lenders, intermediaries and building societies.

Cockerill will work with colleagues across the business to build on Paragon’s specialist lending expertise, developing further solutions that support portfolio growth, property improvement and investment across the private rented sector.

Gatehouse Bank has launched a new one-year fixed term community saver account to support its charity partner, Depaul UK.

Through the saver account, customers can support the youth homelessness charity simply by saving. Customers accept a profit rate that is 0.05% lower than its standard fixed term deposit rate and Gatehouse matches that contribution, resulting in a donation equivalent of 0.10% of the account deposit.

The account is available to new and existing UK customers and requires a minimum deposit of £1,000.

District & County Investments (DCI) has expanded its team with the appointments of Sukhen Jotangia as loan manager and Emily Bell to its sales support team.

Jotangia joins DCI from Reliance Bank, where he served as portfolio manager, after eight years at RBS Commercial Banking. In his new role, he will support the firm’s BDMs with underwriting and manage relationships with borrowers through the lifecycle of live loans.

Bell joined DCI in August from specialist lender Breeze Capital, having also previously worked at Hope Capital and Lloyds Banking Group. As part of its sales support team, she will support BDMs and loan managers across new applications and enquiries.

One Mortgage System (OMS) has strengthened its partnership with Step One Finance through the integration of a bespoke loan origination system.

The development builds on an already successful API integration, and since then, both firms have worked to design an origination platform tailored to the specific needs of the lender, its intermediary partners and the end customer.

Step One Finance has now fully adopted OMS Originations to support and streamlines its mortgage application process.

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