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p>A bridging lender has managed to cut even more time off its processes, following a review and analysis of its business.
Ultimate Capital initiated the exercise, which involved deconstructing the lifetime of a typical loan from initial broker enquiry through to repayment.
Managing a customer’s expectations is always a difficult thing to do, especially when it comes to commercial bridging loans. The funds are often required quickly but the legal process typically takes between 4-6 weeks to complete. The need for legal searches and charges is important and adds time but things can be done to fast track matters: especially on simpler loans.
Ultimate identified over 100 different events that take place across the lifetime of a typical bridging loan. It then analysed in detail each event and improved them by way of reallocating resource, and implementing new processes and procedures all geared towards delivering loans faster.
Mike Shearn, COO of Ultimate, told B&C: “We pride ourselves on being fast, flexible, and fuss free. However, we’re never complacent and that’s why we undertook a review and have re-engineered our business processes, procedures, and reallocated resource to improve our offering even further.
“We have a culture of continuous improvement and wanting to deliver the very best for our customers. The customer is core to our business and we pride ourselves on delivering a highly personal service. We place huge emphasis on active loan management, building long term relationships, and the new systems and processes that we are investing in will help us deliver an even better customer experience and reduce the time it takes to draw down a loan.”
All bridges are different although time is usually a critical factor and, once committed to a lender, then the borrower needs confidence that their lender will deliver on time. Whilst lenders and their professional teams must take the lead in the process, borrowers and their solicitors also have an important role.
“Communication is everything,” said Mike. “We want our customers to get funds as quickly as possible and they also have a key role to play which is why we have also written a short borrowers guide called “Fast-tracking your loan”.
“It provides borrowers with simple but important six-point plan, in terms of what they need to do to fast-track their loan following acceptance of our offer”.
In November at the Finance Professional Show at Olympia, London, the bridging lender launched The Ultimate Partnership Scheme (UPS)
Ultimate’s record to complete a bridging loan from initial enquiry, was on a £750,000 bridge required between exchange and the delayed completion on a large rural estate in Devon last summer. The initial enquiry was received and the funds were lent seven business days later.
With new systems in place, Mike, who became COO in mid-October 2013, and Ultimate Capital are becoming more innovative and creative, and are now on track to set new completion records.
A bridging lender has managed to cut even more time off its processes, following a review and analysis of its business.
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