The focus has shifted onto the regulator after the Council of Mortgage Lenders signalled that it has no plans to release product transfer data last month – saying it’s not robust enough to be placed in the public domain.
Industry heavyweights have urged the Financial Conduct Authority to make it compulsory for lenders to report product transfer data.
The focus has shifted onto the regulator after the Council of Mortgage Lenders signalled that it has no plans to release product transfer data last month – saying it’s not robust enough to be placed in the public domain.
Ray Boulger, senior technical manager of John Charcol, said: “I have suggested to the FCA that releasing product transfer data should be compulsory.
“The only way these figures are going to be available on a robust basis is if the FCA or Bank of England requires lenders to produce them in their quarterly product sales data – that would make sense.”
Previously SimplyBiz Mortgages chief executive Martin Reynolds warned that if this type of business continues to be ‘invisible’ consumer confidence could be threatened by inaccurate reports of a market downturn this year.
And Robert Sinclair, chief executive of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, has gone on record estimating that £100bn of product transfer business could be going unreported.
He said: “The FCA should be taking control over this – they are in the middle of a competition review and they have the power to ask lenders to publish the data.
“With the FCA this begs the question of whether the MMR was a success since one of its clear intentions was to have an advised market.”
Property analyst Kate Faulkner also weighed in on the debate.
She said: “If there is a misreporting of the market this should be published.
“However if the data is reported simply to encourage more consumers to switch and check deals beforehand I think we’ve got to the point where they need to take responsibility themselves – anyone who doesn’t check in this day and age is an idiot.”
Boulger reckoned remortgage and product transfer data could rival that of the home purchase market when combined.
He said: “I suspect that in 2016 remortgaging will be £65-70bn and product transfers £80-90bn. It would make sense to put them together and if so you would have a figure quite close to purchases.
“That would put things in a different light to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.”
Making the relationship between remortgage and product transfer business public could also be used to analyse consumer behaviour.
Boulger added: “There’s no doubt remortgage activity is picking up. What we don’t know is if the increase is down to a substitute from product transfers.
“In the depths of the credit crunch it was very difficult to remortgage for a lot of people so they had no choice but to product transfer.
“Now as their equity has grown people have the option to look at both.”
And he said: “It would be interesting to see whether those remortgaging or product transferring are taking out 2 or 5-year fixes or whatever as that would tell whether people are focusing on price or the long-term.
“Some will do it because it’s easy without appreciating they could possibly get a better deal if they remortgaged.”
