Cardiff Money aims to become a recognised player within the second charge mortgage industry following its launch last month.

The second charge packager is part of London Money, which provides mortgage advice to borrowers in London and the South East.

Cardiff Money will target the often-overlooked directly authorised market space to help raise the brokers’ awareness and education of the second charge product.

Loan Talk caught up with Daniel Yeo, managing director at Cardiff Money, to find out its plans and the reasons behind the launch, as well as the future of the second charge market.

Daniel said his ambitions for Cardiff Money were big, yet realistic.

“For now, it’s all about increasing our broker network, not only in Cardiff, but across the UK.

“I want Cardiff Money to become a recognised player in the industry.
 
“We aren’t doctors, we aren’t saving lives, so we need to appreciate our good luck to be involved in an industry that rewards endeavour and innovation.

“I love meeting people and in this industry you are never more than one meeting away from finding that someone that can make ambitions a reality.”

Why join Cardiff Money?

Daniel has spent several years in the second charge industry and served in a number of roles at Y3S, including head of new business development.
 
With regards to why he chose to set up Cardiff Money, Daniel explained that this was the result of meeting Martin Stewart and Scott Thorpe of London Money earlier this year.

“It didn’t take long – once I heard about what London Money was doing for us – to realise the obvious: to set up a mirror version of the brand in my hometown of Cardiff.

“We have complementary skills: mine primarily being a deep understanding of the introducer market and how to generate business from it, and a passion for [the] client journey.
 
“What Scott and Martin bring is not only their experience in business, but the brand they are building and the infrastructure they have in place.

“I share their vision and we have almost identical thoughts on where the industry needs to go.”

Educating and promoting second charge mortgages

Daniel felt that education was paramount and said Cardiff Money had just run its first masterclass which had positive results with brokers engaging with its unique fee model structure which gives them control.

“It’s all about engagement.

“Brokers don’t want never-ending phone calls that start with: ‘How’s your day going? Got any business for us?’
 
“They receive enough emails containing a stagnant message, so they don’t need any more from us.

“That said, they do want to be kept abreast of what’s going on, though, so it’s all about finding the balance.”

Cardiff Money and London Money will be offering monthly seminars, which will help to keep brokers informed about the current state of the market.
 
“It is not about information overload or pummelling them with all the awards that have been won, but more about a focus group whereby they can talk openly about what they don’t like about second mortgages as opposed to hearing about what we like about them.
 
“At our most recent seminar, we ended up with a broker suggesting a new second charge mortgage product.

“It was a simple idea, so we took it away and we are now talking to a few lenders about building it into an exclusive product.

“So, it’s about working together as an industry, phone calls are great, emails are great – in moderation – but you can’t beat a face-to-face meeting.”

The future for seconds

Daniel hoped to see more new entrants in the second charge mortgage space and felt that if the demand was there, then the industry would find the talent to accommodate it.

However, he felt that any new entrants needed to be at the top of their game to get any traction in the industry.

“Also, if you are in the industry already, but not innovating and merely repainting the front door to appear different, then you are putting your business at risk.

“I see a time when there will be very little difference between first and second charge mortgages other than regulatory or legal points.

“The closer we get to that unification, the busier we will all become.
 
“But the elephant in the room is still the high entry fees that many people charge.

“I see now where we are going wrong as a market, which is why our model will be built on being sustainable in a low-fee environment that may only offer 0.5% procuration fees as opposed to 2%.

“The pecking order needs to be client, broker, packager and I think sometimes we have that back to front, so I look forward to helping to make sure we keep the industry focused on that.”