Brokers at the Premier Mortgage Service (PMS) seminar, held at Wembley, questioned the service levels of Abbey, with one broker claiming they had spent up to half an hour on the phone to get an application through. The criticism was agreed upon among the delegates, who greeted the disapproval with further comments on the level of service available.
register for the next forum
Abbey key relationships manager, Stephen Best, claimed that the lender was dealing with the problems and acknowledged the difficulties that some intermediaries had with getting through to the firm. Best said: “I find it painful when our service isn’t right, but I do feel that you will see some improvements in the coming weeks. I acknowledge that we have had some problems but we are putting new systems in and despite keeping costs under control, the basic problem is that we have been too busy with the demand.
“In the last six weeks the systems have overheated a little bit, but our managing director of Abbey for Intermediaries, Ricky Okey, is well aware of the difficulties and is keen to address them quickly to get things back on track.”
get the daily news delivered to your inbox
John Malone, PMS managing director, admitted: “We’re guilty as well but the mortgage industry remains busy. In 10 days alone we shifted around £160 million of products.
“There is a massive desire for us to engage with you more than we do already. No mortgage is easy these days, we believe that the intermediary is key and lenders are gearing up to work with you.”
