AMI appoints 10 regional co-coordinators

Region

Name

London

Andy Pratt

Alexander Hall

South East

Hilary Penfold

Guaranteed Home Loans

South West

Bill Warren

Complete Mortgages

Midlands

Robert Clayton

2nd Mortgages Ltd

Wales/North Midlands

John Lloyd

Mortgage Advice Centre

North East

Andrew Frankish

Mortgage Talk

North West

Kevin Reynolds

Independent Mortgage Services

Scotland

Colin McCallum

Heritable

Northern Ireland

Brenden McVeigh

Case Funding Centre

Seamus McGivern

Greenbank Mortgages

Mortgage trade body, the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) has appointed regional chairmen on a national scale to establish two-way lines of communication with its membership.

Each newly-appointed chairman is an unpaid volunteer mortgage broker, charged with setting up regional committees, which report back to the AMI head office and offer local members help and advice. The first regional meeting took place on 15 January.

Chris Cummings, director of mortgages at AMI said the spectrum of new chairmen represent both AR and DA status reflecting ‘all shades’ of the broking market.

Andrew Frankish, operations director at Mortgage Talk and new regional chairman for the North East, said: “Taking this position has been as much for Mortgage Talk as for AMI. There is still so much to learn and it has to be best to hear about it at the earliest opportunity.”

Cummings, said: “Our biggest wish is to be on the front foot, not the back foot constantly reacting to either the FSA or our membership’s issues. We will be offering practical help on direct authorisation, filling out authorisation applications, network selection, IT and other business development issues. We would also, of course, be happy to hear from any other brokers interested in regional chairman positions,” said Cummings.

David Bitner, head of product operations at The MarketPlace, said: “We fully support AMI and what they are trying to achieve.”

He added: “Although, it’s a bit of a shame AMI was born so late in the day as a representative force.”

AMI membership now stands at 7,000, but still has some way to go with 55,000 qualified advisers in total, according to the latest MCCB figures.