Bradford & Bingley (B&B) has plans to slash another 450 jobs from its core lending businesses.
The cuts will be made before the end of the year. Redundancies will be made from middle management, back-office and support function employees. No customer-facing roles are currently threatened.
AMI chairman steps down
Charles Gooding has announced he will not seek re-election as chairman of AMI. A new chairman will be elected following the appointment of the AMI board on15 July. In a statement Gooding thanked the industry for the support it had shown him.
BDS and homefast launch conveyancing service
South coast-based packager and distributor BDS Mortgage Group has teamed up with homefast property lawyers to launch a new conveyancing service. The service includes online tracking, a fixed fee and a ‘no completion, no legal fee’ agreement.
xit2 property exchange picked up by BBG
BBG Commercial, a division of SecureMove Property Services owned by Bradford and Bingley, is the first company to instruct commercial property valuations through a web-based system. Using xit2’s valuation exchange, widely used for residential property valuations, the system has been adapted to accommodate commercial valuer expectations.
GMAC-RFC’s £1.5 billion securitisation
GMAC-RFC has completed its largest ever securitisation deal valued at £1.5 billion. The mixed collateral deal involves prime, near prime and non-conforming mortgages. The issued notes are the first intended to include US investments.
Net lending up 39 per cent at UCB
Nationwide’s specialist lender UCB Home Loans increased its net advances by 39 per cent to a record £718 million to 31 March this year.
Charles Reed, managing director of UCB Home Loans, said: “We had an exceptionally good year. There are around 3.2 million people who class themselves as self-employed accounting for about 11.5 per cent of the workforce.”
Kensington securitises £700 million
Kensington Group, the specialist mortgage lender, has successfully launched its latest £700 million mortgage-backed securitisation.
The £700 million transaction is the second Kensington securitisation in 2004.
Kensington has now securitised approximately £6.9 billion of residential mortgages since the start of its programme in 1996.
RAMP appoints compliance officer
Samantha Foxall has been appointed compliance director for the Regulatory Alliance of Mortgage Packagers (RAMP).
RAMP claims that all applications processed by its packager members will ‘meet every condition of the FSA regime’.
RAMP has been working with compliance consultancy firm Wragge & Co since March this year until Foxall agreed to move across to join the alliance.
Network Data agrees Paymentshield deal
Network Data has signed a non-exclusive deal with Paymentshield enabling its ARs to put insurance business through the broker.
Network Data said this resulted from Paymentshield’s boosted panel of products and providers.
Network Data also plans to re-launch the mortgageLink software in August which it said would be fully compliant with the FSA’s insurance regulation.
