Adam Tyler

FIBA live deal rooms to set standard on credit-ready cases




Last month, the Financial Intermediary & Broker Association (FIBA) committed to 30 regional meetings for its members and intermediaries and, more recently, revealed that its workshops will feature a live deal room.

The regional workshops will give brokers a chance to interact with partner lenders in a live deal room, with the first set of events launching on 10th April in Manchester.

More dates are set for April, and then later in the year in June and September.

The new format will allow brokers to pitch real cases to individual lenders and obtain a view as if from a credit committee.

Lenders will be able to demonstrate what kind of cases work for them, provide guidance on the best ways to present a case and give insight into different funding model appetites and constraints.

At each event, there will be six lenders from six different backgrounds to cater to around 50 brokers from a wide range of specialist finance sectors.

Bridging & Commercial recently caught up with FIBA’s executive chairman Adam Tyler – an IFA himself in the past, and former chief executive of the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers – who has looked after various groups of brokers over the years.

Adam explained how the live deal room feature would not only help create more business on the day but could also drive up the quality of how brokers presented deals outside of the workshops.

“The main idea behind these events is to do something different and to provide some form of education to both the broking and lending communities,” Adam said.

FIBA hopes to help ensure that brokers and intermediaries looking to work in specialist finance, and some that are already dealing with it on the fringes, are doing things correctly.

“By running a different kind of event where we bring live deals to the lenders, means that other brokers who are part of that group can see how business should be written and what should be happening, both from a broker’s point of view and a lender’s.”

At a recent joint event featuring FIBA and the Association of Short Term Lenders, brokers set out their key pain points and explored ways in which the lending process could be simplified.

“There was some disparity about the kind of business that the lenders were prepared to accept, which in some cases just appeared to be very basic information, which is not what we would expect” said Adam.

“But the brokers, I must admit – that were in the room – all presented credit-ready cases that had everything that the credit department would need to assess a case virtually in one go.”

Adam explained that the upcoming events should hopefully show that brokers would get a much better outcome from lenders if they presented in the right way.

“What we also hope is, through educating the brokers, that they are not just sending out the same deal to a whole range of different lenders, hoping for an outcome from at least one of them.

“What we want is for them to understand which lender does what and target the right lender with the right kind of deals.

“This makes the broker look more professional and gets a quicker answer for the customer.

“It also stops the lenders getting bogged down with lots of deals which either don’t fit their criteria or are not in their scope.”

The events – which Adam said would “without a doubt” generate business – are also likely to attract complicated deals.

While brokers are going to need a good working knowledge of the case, the paperwork and documentation can be left at home.

“You are probably not going to see many vanilla cases being brought along on the day,” Adam added.

“I think you’re going to see more complex short-term and development cases that are going to challenge the lenders on the day.

“Some of them may not fit the criteria of the lenders that are present, but they may fit other lenders that aren’t there, and that’s where the other brokers that are part and parcel of these groups will be able to help.

“That is showing collaboration within our own industry.”

And collaboration is one of the key aims for FIBA this year.

 “The roots for FIBA are solid and the ideas that were put in place by the original founders are still true to this day.” Adam added.

“And for me, now, it’s having the opportunity to build on everything that everybody has done, because we have now got the resources and investment behind FIBA to make that happen.

“If we can bring together all the lenders and groups of brokers that are in the specialist property finance space and, at the same time, also include the professionals – the lawyers and the surveyors that are working in these sectors – what we then have is a group that all has the same interests.”

To find out more about FIBA’s regional workshops and to register for the events, visit the Association’s website.

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