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p>Well, let’s start off by acknowledging the ‘No’ vote in the Scottish referendum. It seems that pragmatism beat romanticism and ultimately people voted for what they knew and were not prepared to take a leap into the unknown.
Of course, that is not the end of it, and in many ways the hard work will begin now with all three of the main UK parties having to live up to their pre-referendum promises to devolve more powers to Scotland.
How this is going to look is very much ‘up in the air’ - it is going to take a great deal of work and the phrase ‘the devil is in the detail’ has never been more apt. On the back of this, there are cries for England to have its own parliament, or at least to have separate votes on matters that apply to England only. Even the English regions are calling for devolved powers in an effort to boost their local economies and to have more of an input into their own local policy making.
In essence, there is a lot of work to be done, a deal of confusion and uncertain timings for when everything will happen.
That is my Segway into the second topic of this blog, which is regulation, compliance and the commercial mortgage market.
I have been speaking to various lenders and market participants on this particular topic and there seems to be an equal measure of confusion and uncertainty. On top of this, we appear to have an additional issue that a number of commercial brokers seem to be taking the view that regulation is something that affects other people. The strategy seems to be to just ignore what is happening and to hope that it all blows over.
The unfortunate news for these people is that it is not going away, and in all likelihood, the commercial market will be increasingly regulated over the coming years.
The ‘knee jerk’ reaction is that this is going to be bad for business and that time will be wasted on unnecessary paperwork. However, these changes should be seen as an opportunity for those brokers that run their businesses in a professional and compliant manner.
In any area of life, evolution occurs when environments change. This gives the better, more adaptable creatures the chance to dominant the slower, weaker species and so it is in business.
How many businesses are going to suffer and die due to not adapting to the new market conditions? Is your business going to be one of them? I am taking a positive view on these changes as I know that my business can meet all of the new requirements and there will be competitors out there that will not. Commercial lenders are also tightening up their introducer requirements, not only for the parties directly introducing the business, but also for the secondary introducer that is making the introduction to the broker.
Are you on top of all this? Because you need to be. If this has come as a shock to you, I recommend that you speak to your compliance officer, consultant or qualified body such as the NACFB – after all we don’t want too many commercial brokers going the way of the dodo.
Well, let's start off by acknowledging the 'No' vote in the Scottish referendum. It seems that pragmatism beat romanticism and ultimately people voted for what they knew....
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