Getting back to bridging basics

During my time spent across a number of bridging finance lenders, I've witnessed firsthand the myriad ways in which overly complex processes can hinder progress, delay crucial decisions, and ultimately cost both brokers and their clients valuable time and money.

I know there is often a disconnect between a lender’s perception of their application process and service, and the reality for the broker and their client.

While lenders are often simple to deal with in their early days, once they scale up to deal with growth in business levels, bureaucracy can take over.

Decisions are no longer taken quickly; instead, cases need to be presented at weekly credit committee meetings, where factors beyond the merits of the case itself need to be considered.

When I decided to set up a new bridging lender, Inspired Lending, my overriding desire was to go back to basics — this is not merely a nostalgic nod to simpler times but an overarching strategy for optimising operations and enhancing client satisfaction.

It’s about keeping things simple, making quick decisions, and sidestepping the cumbersome credit committee process.

To me, at the heart of effective bridging lending is the principle of clarity. Is the application a good one or not? Ultimately, overly intricate procedures and an abundance of paperwork will not enhance a poor case and, on the flip side, could actually risk the viability of a sound application by unnecessarily slowing its progress.

Having worked at a range of lenders, I’ve seen how documentation can become problematic. For a number of reasons — growth and regulation being two of the main ones — a lender’s documentation requirements usually only increase over time.

I’m not being critical of any of my previous employers here, merely making an observation; that said, these thoughts did shape my attitude towards documentation and what is really necessary for our new lender.

Consequently, our first step in simplifying the lending process was to streamline documentation, reducing the number of required documents to only the most essential ones.

The result is that we don’t even have an application form! Instead, brokers have access to decision-makers — me and the sales director, Owen Bentley — from day one.

We don’t see any need for lengthy underwriting procedures; if we like the case, and it works for us, then we’ll do it.

We can say this with certainty as over the past 15 years we’ve seen it all — the good, the bad and the ugly — and we know the areas that we can live with and those we don’t like.

Of course, I’m not saying there’s a right way and a wrong way when it comes to short-term lending. I know from first-hand experience that different approaches don’t necessarily affect demand; I’m just outlining what I think will work for us and the brokers we partner with. It’s also the way we want to work. 

For us, going back to basics is about having an appetite to lend and ensuring everything is geared towards supporting this principle.

For example, we know from experience that a source of huge frustration for brokers and their clients is when a small change to the case occurs which necessitates a whole new underwriting process.

At Inspired Lending, this won’t happen: if the case is still fundamentally the same case then minute changes won’t affect it.

Setting up a bridging lender from scratch is a rare opportunity to learn from past experience and create a culture where decision-making and service can be as simple as possible.

Ultimately, there’s space in the sector for a range of lenders with different approaches; brokers and their clients will decide whose proposition is the right one for them.