The Big Interview: Matt Kimber on Molo's broker-first growth

Matt Kimber (pictured top) has spent more than 30 years in specialist mortgage lending, holding roles across administration, underwriting, completions, and sales whilst having managed marketing, technology, finance, treasury, risk, and compliance.

When he joined Molo Finance as chief operating officer in November 2023 before becoming chief executive three months later, he was not expecting an easy ride. What he found when he lifted the bonnet told a more complicated story than the one visible from the outside.

"From afar it looked like the most straightforward business in the world, that everything was running very smoothly," he told Mortgage Introducer. "But I saw a business that under previous ownership had lacked a bit of love and attention, and a real opportunity to grow the business to be a real challenger in the specialist market. I also saw a really invested, great group of people."

Two-and-a-half years later, the figures tell a different story. Molo Finance – which operates as the origination engine for ColCap Financial UK, the British subsidiary of ColCap Financial Group, Australia's largest non-bank lender with approximately A$22 billion (£12 billion) under management – has grown its loan book from £200 million at the time of Kimber's arrival to more than £1.3 billion today. The business is targeting £1.5 billion by the end of 2026.

How do Molo and ColCap fit together?

For brokers who deal primarily with the Molo brand, the structure beneath it can seem opaque. Molo handles everything from initial sales through to completion – the full origination function. ColCap UK sits alongside it as the funding entity, holding the warehouse structures, treasury, and back-office servicing functions. Warehouse funding refers to a short-term credit facility that allows a lender to originate loans before they are securitised. In Molo's case, bundled into residential mortgage-backed securities to access longer-term capital markets funding.

"From a broker point of view, their interaction day-to-day is with Molo," Kimber said. "The Molo brand, Molo loans, it's just that the funding is via ColCap."

ColCap's co-founders, Ilias Pavlopoulos and Andrew Chepul, remain closely involved – one as chairman, one as a non-executive director – and the privately owned structure was a deliberate attraction for Kimber after a spell working for an American hedge fund.

"They really sold me the vision of the business and what they wanted to achieve over the coming five to 10 years," he said. "I could see there was something pretty special they're looking to build here."

What has been the hardest thing to get right?

ColCap's Australian operation was built on three pillars that the UK business was designed to replicate – disciplined securitisation-led funding, strong risk management, and consistency of service. Kimber is candid about which has caused the most difficulty.

"Consistency of service is probably, and always will be, the most difficult because you have to evolve with the market," he said.

When he arrived, the business was not yet securitising.  Paolo Tanca was brought in as UK treasurer, building out a dedicated treasury team, and established the warehouse programme underpinning both Molo's domestic buy-to-let lending and its international programme for foreign nationals and expat borrowers. He also identified a more fundamental problem. The technology was not fit for the volume the business needed to reach.

"The technology probably wasn't as strong as I was led to believe it could or should be," he said. "Originating small volumes, yes, but if we wanted to get into a more volume play, we needed a lot more there to deliver that service, in particular to the intermediary market."

The previous ownership had also pursued a business-to-consumer model, something Kimber reversed on arrival. With around 90% of the specialist mortgage market flowing through intermediaries, he considered the B2C focus difficult to justify. The shift to a broker-first model mirrors a wider pivot among specialist lenders seeking sustainable origination volume in a competitive intermediary market.

What has changed for brokers on the ground?

In February, Molo appointed OMS as its originations management system. The previous proprietary platform was functional but difficult and costly to evolve. OMS, founded by people with a broker background, offered a portal designed with intermediary and workflows in mind. Brokers can now access quicker decisions in principle, upload and download documents through a single interface, and interact directly with the underwriting team through the same portal.

"What's new today is out of date tomorrow," he said. "So actually, having to maintain that burden and cost ourselves was incredibly difficult."

Future developments include the ability to submit applications without manually completing documentation, with elements built by OMS, integrated via application programming interfaces (APIs), and – in time – generated by AI.

The appointment of Lynne French as chief operating officer earlier this year follows the same logic. As the business has grown, demands have changed. French was brought in to own the operational space, and brokers have already noticed the difference.

"We're driving conversion rates through quicker," he said. "We've made changes to the way we transact with conveyancers, and that's all driven by Lynne coming into the business and having that kind of pure focus on the operational environment."

Is price still the priority for BTL landlords?

The buy-to-let market is professionalising. According to UK Finance data for Q1, there were 1.47 million buy-to-let fixed-rate mortgages outstanding in the UK, with the average rate on new buy-to-let loans sitting at 4.71% – a market served almost entirely through the intermediary channel that Molo operates exclusively within.

The "dinner party landlord" is giving way to investors managing portfolios of four, five, or more properties, and they want to understand the broader picture – including changes under HMRC, the Financial Conduct Authority's ongoing mortgage market reforms, and the Renters' Rights Act, which abolished Section 21 no-fault evictions from May – rather than simply chasing the sharpest rate.

Molo launched semi-commercial lending earlier in 2026, a product Kimber sees as a natural adjacency to the core buy-to-let proposition, as portfolio landlords increasingly seek higher-yielding properties that push them into semi-commercial territory. That shift is part of a broader professionalisation of the UK landlord landscape that specialist lenders are positioning themselves to serve.

"Price is no longer the lead item," Kimber said. "What a broker and a landlord needs to see is confidence to complete the transaction. They want to see that the numbers stack up. That's paramount."

Swap rate volatility has made pricing discipline harder. Molo will not use a loss-leader rate only to pull away from the market when funding costs bite. The preference is for presence, even if the rate sits a few basis points above a competitor.

"Our brokers always know with certainty that there is a product that Molo can offer them," he said. "And anecdotally, what we find from brokers is that they like that approach."

In July – a month of significant market volatility – the business recorded its strongest ever month of applications. More product lines are planned for Q3, Q4, and into 2027. When an American hedge fund investor once pressed Kimber on what single advantage Molo could claim over its competitors, his reply cut through the framing.

"I said there is no single USP in the market. I've got 20 peers and then there's another 30 lenders doing similar but not quite the same. The USP is to have a basket of USPs. That ability to provide excellent service, a good product, a competitively priced product, a broad and strong criteria, the certainty of execution. That kind of basket of USPs is really where we have to sit in the specialist lending market, and where lenders will survive and thrive."