The Regulator Is Asking What Good Looks Like. Mortgage Brokers Should Answer Before Someone Else Does
The FCA has opened something called the AI Input Zone, and most mortgage brokers will never hear about it. That is the problem. It is not a consultation on draft rules. There is nothing to object to, no proposal to push back on. The regulator is doing something quieter and, in its way, more consequential. […]
Why Your Clients Are Quietly Borrowing Twice
The second charge mortgage market just had its best month since the eve of the financial crisis. In March 2026, lenders advanced £228 million across 4,129 new agreements. That is the highest monthly figure since February 2008, and it represents a 36 per cent jump in value on the same month a year earlier. Over […]
Why a quiet appointed representative is now the FCA’s first question
An appointed representative tells its network principal, soon after onboarding, that it does not intend to carry out any regulated activity. The principal keeps the AR on the Financial Services Register for over a year, waiting for the contractual end date to roll around before terminating. The FCA has just confirmed, in print, that this […]
The human adviser in an AI mortgage market
NatWest’s decision to place home-buying guidance inside ChatGPT is a story with large implications. It shows how quickly the first conversation about a mortgage can move away from a branch, a broker website, or a phone call, and into a digital channel that feels immediate, conversational and cheap. As I know from experience, first conversations […]
Basel 3.1: The Regulation Coming Over the Hill
Somewhere in the small Swiss city of Basel, inside a circular tower overlooking the Rhine, a committee of central bankers has been quietly reshaping the rules of global finance for half a century. What they’ve decided is now about to land squarely on the UK lending market, and if you’re advising clients on mortgages, you […]
The FCA Has Just Redrawn the Map for Mortgages. Most Brokers Haven’t Noticed Yet.
There is a document sitting on the FCA’s website, published this week, that could reshape how every mortgage in the UK is originated over the next five years. It is called the Open Finance Roadmap. It is not a consultation paper or a vague statement of intent. It is a plan, with timelines, named use […]
John Lewis Just Wrote Off £22m on Housing. Here’s Why Mortgage Professionals Should Pay Attention.
John Lewis has quietly written off £22 million on its failed build-to-rent venture. The scheme, launched in 2020 with ambitions to build 10,000 rental homes, was scrapped in February after the economics stopped working. Architectural designs, planning applications, site preparation, all of it written down to zero. For a partnership that reported £13.4 billion in […]
The 15% LTI Cap Is Under Review. Here’s What the Regulators Are Proposing.
For a rule that has shaped UK mortgage lending since 2014, the loan-to-income flow limit has always been a slightly odd creature. Simple on the surface, a cap on how many mortgages at 4.5 times income or above any single lender could write, but quietly distorting in practice. Lenders built management buffers beneath the 15% […]
The Renters’ Rights Act: What Mortgage Advisers and Landlord Clients Need to Know
The Renters’ Rights Act is set to come into force in May, and it represents one of the most significant shifts in the UK rental market in decades. For mortgage advisers and brokers working with landlord clients, understanding these changes is essential. What is changing? The headline change is the abolition of Section 21 — […]
UK Bank Capital Rules Are Locking Up Lending Capacity
The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee has just confirmed that the UK banking system is resilient. Banks can weather extreme stress. That is good news. Except here is the awkward bit: the very capital rules that prove resilience are now starving the mortgage market of funds. On the same day the FPC published its […]