SPOTLIGHT: Grant Seaton, Head of Intermediary Lending
You have led The Cumberland’s intermediary partnership drive since early 2023, following its launch in 2021, although you have worked at the mutual for many years. How did your experience prepare you for the broker launch?
I’ve been with The Cumberland for 27 years, and during that time, I’ve worked across many distribution channels including our branch network where I provided direct mortgage advice and branch management, a period within our mortgage underwriting team, then an extended period of time within our Commercial Team as a Senior Commercial Manager.
I got my CeMap in 2001 while working in the branch network. After rising to branch manager, I qualified as a financial adviser. However, the financial crash disrupted things, and I took the decision to move to the commercial mortgage lending side, which I did for 10 years, eventually reaching management level. In each role, I always put myself in the mindset of the customer and considered what is possible to make the journey as smooth as possible.
When I first became Head of Intermediary Lending, when speaking with brokers it became clear that a business development manager, an adviser’s main contact, needs to really know their stuff, be quickly contactable, and if they have to say ‘no’, they need to say it promptly. Time is crucial for brokers, and ensuring their customer’s journey is smooth is essential. This insight played a big part in shaping the structure of our intermediary team.
What do you want brokers to think of when they consider The Cumberland for Intermediaries?
We build strong relationships through our people and service. Nationally, we are probably best known for holiday lets, having provided lending in this sector for nearly 20 years across Scotland, England, and Wales. Now, we are also growing our residential mortgage offering, including large loans of up to £5 million and a willingness to offer up to 6x income.
We are expanding steadily, though our distribution strategy for residential lending is currently limited to our core operating areas—Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland, and South West Scotland. We also service a small panel of London-based broker firms with whom we have established strong relationships over the years. Holiday let lending allows us to operate nationally, providing more flexibility for brokers.
How do you plan to expand your distribution into the market, and within what timeframe?
We are cautious not to expand distribution too quickly, as that could compromise the level of service we offer. By the end of October, we aim to have onboarded most Directly Authorised (DA) broker firms within our heartland. We’ve signed two restricted distribution deals with Sesame and Mortgage Advice Bureau, our first network partnerships, but we’re not yet ready to expand those relationships further. Maintaining high service levels is extremely important to me. Currently, we’re performing exceptionally well in terms of origination, so my focus is on ensuring the journey is positive for our intermediary partners and their clients. It’s essential that we monitor the business flow closely to avoid overheating.
How has the mutual’s consumer proposition evolved to attract brokers and strengthen those relationships?
Our intermediary team brings a wealth of mortgage experience developed over many years, and I’ve restructured the 22-strong team to prioritise relationship building and delivering a quality service. We’ve moved away from a centralised mortgage team structure, where cases were funnelled into a central hub, and replaced it with an account-based model, giving brokers multiple points of contact.
It’s important that brokers have direct access to our advisers to build strong relationships. We value feedback, both positive and negative, because receiving raw feedback helps us shape a service that works for brokers.
Brokers prefer phone calls to emails, as they want to quickly understand their client’s position. I want to keep the business development manager (BDM) to broker ratio manageable, so we can continue offering first-class service, and I’m committed to maintaining that standard.
We are also making significant progress in digitalising the intermediary mortgage process. Last month, we launched an affordability calculator, which can cut up to two days off the application process. This marks a major shift from our previous fully manual process, allowing brokers to engage with us at any time, which is especially useful in today’s volatile re-pricing market. There’s a lot more to come on the technology front, so watch this space.