We should challenge whether any mortgage case is ‘vanilla’ – Star Letter 18/09/2026
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Is any mortgage vanilla?
The first comment was in response to the story: BMPS 2026: Brokers should not give up on vanilla mortgage cases.
Will Hale, CEO of Key Advice and Air, said: “Good to see Mark Harrington, CEO of L&C Mortgages, Clare Beardmore, director of Mortgage Club at Legal & General, and Peter Brodnicki, CEO of Mortgage Advice Bureau, make the case for advice for all types of mortgage business.
“However, I’m not convinced that references to ‘vanilla cases’ are helpful to the sector as we look to defend against lender-direct and technology-driven execution-only models. Indeed, my belief is that we should be challenging whether any mortgage transaction is actually ‘vanilla’. Approaches [that] are purely based on finding the lowest cost of borrowing/rate are open to competitive pressure from outside the traditional intermediary sector – or at the very least, subject to the risk of margin erosion. But good mortgage advice should look far beyond just the mortgage. A mortgage is just one element of the personal balance sheet and, when taking out or reviewing a mortgage, consideration should be given to protection and general insurance needs, the relationship to pension saving or future asset decumulation strategies, wills and lasting powers of attorney and intergenerational wealth transfer options.”
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Hale added: “I am more aligned with Peter’s comment: ‘You can’t just be a transactional business… we have to extend our business models… we have to be involved in everything that customer needs.’
“For me, this means consigning the term ‘broker’ to the past and ensuring that we offer true holistic advice – albeit centred around the mortgage. Simple ‘broking’ is an endeavour that is at risk from digital disruptors and disintermediation more generally. Some larger distributors may see opportunity in this digital execution-only space and look to evolve their businesses in this direction – playing to the undoubted customer demand for low-cost self-serve options, despite the absence of protections. But for most advisers, moving from a transactional model to a relationship approach will not only support better outcomes for customers but also offer commercial benefits. Whatever route is taken, being stuck in the middle and defending the status quo is likely to be a dangerous strategy.
“In no part of the market is this more relevant than when dealing with customers over the age of 55. A market that sits at just £60bn of annual lending (when including product transfers) when considered against an opportunity [that] sees over-55s own c.£4trn of unencumbered property wealth points to an untapped opportunity. Furthermore, with products such as modern lifetime mortgages representing under 5% of total lending to this cohort, it also suggests that advice approaches have not evolved from traditional broking models. Holistic advice is needed to support better customer outcomes, and we can expect the regulator to act.”
Technology should optimise and shorten mortgage journeys, not replace humans
The next comment came in response to the story BMPS 2026: It would be a ‘big own goal’ to change current broker-lender model – Morris.
Daniel Baguley, regional underwriter at Bluestone Mortgages, said: “No one should want the human advice end of the journey to go away. What technology should do is optimise and shorten the entire end-to-end journey, which is still far too disjointed.
“Integrating agents, surveyors and conveyancers more closely into the journey needs to be part of that, rather than continuing reliance on cumbersome legacy processes and communication.”
It is hard to manually, consistently manage client retention
In response to the story: ‘Half your remortgage clients won’t come back – and you probably don’t know which half’ – Flavin, Cleera said: “The 12-month, six-month, monthly cadence is right, but the part most firms underestimate is how hard that is to run consistently by hand across a full book.
“It only takes a handful of cases slipping through the gaps for the retention rate to drift back down, which is usually where the leak actually happens rather than clients deliberately choosing to leave.”
