The benefits of panel management

You cannot have missed all the recent articles that have been appearing with regards to the Halifax’s decision to start selling conveyancing services to its customers.

The Halifax has chosen to offer this service as a way of improving the home moving experience for their customers. And the method they have chosen to provide this service is through carefully selected lawyers with a great deal of experience and who specialise in conveyancing. The Halifax have chosen to outsource the management of the service to panel managers.

By choosing to outsource the management of its conveyancing services, the Halifax have ensured they have the capacity to provide excellent customer service consistent with their brand and are capable of dealing with the high volumes of work the new product is expected to attract. Paneling provides a swift route to market with little or no IT set up costs and manages regulatory requirements. All in all, it gives the Halifax a legal service that doesn’t put their business at risk.

Peter Wake, managing director of TitleAbsolute, said: “When businesses have come to us for help in managing their conveyancing, they’ve been surprised by how easy it was for them to set up and to earn income from it …. and their customers have been really pleased with the service.”

So, the question now is, how long will it be before other lenders, mortgage brokers, and anyone else involved in helping people move home, also start to realise the benefits of offering their customers an excellent conveyancing service, tailored to their brand and customer proposition, by working with panel managers to set up a conveyancing service quickly with little or no investment cost.