With OSB recently launching its new BTL lending brand Rely, BTL Insider sat down with Adrian Maloney, group intermediary director at OSB Group (pictured above), and Jon Hall, group managing director for mortgages and savings.
The pair discussed the firm’s new brand and hear how OSB’s different arms plan to aim the crosshairs more closely at specific market segments.
One of OSB’s key aims for the new brand is to continue the first-day offering speed from its soft launch as it expands to the wider market.
“While we were doing that soft launch with brokers, we were seeing same-day, 24-hour offers pretty consistently,” said Jon.
He attributed this to brokers’ understanding that inputting the correct and appropriate data was key to being able to produce offerings in this space of time.
This turnaround timeframe is something that’s very rare in the market, he noted. “Same-day offers in the BTL space are pretty much unheard of, so I think that's a really good sign — an early sign, but really positive.”
Adrian noted that throughout the years OSB had received feedback from the broker market describing the difficulties they face with the amount of paperwork involved in processing applications. However, with things like business plans and cashflow forecasts now built in to the system, the plan is for the process to speed up.
While the platform may allow for speedy turnarounds through the use of data input and fintech, Adrian emphasised that the need for human intervention on complex cases remains essential.
“We still retain that expertise for those complex cases, those larger portfolios where our underwriting team are able to look at those under the Rely banner.”
As OSB looks to launch the new Rely brand out to the wider broker market, it is looking not just to create a new image for its BTL proposition but to develop a whole new lender, retiring its previous BTL lending arm, Kent Reliance for Intermediaries.
This more focused lending arm will allow the firm to concentrate its efforts more specifically on certain areas, with other brands, such as Precise, being able to focus on its residential and bridging proposition.
Jon said this would allow OSB and its brands to become one-stop shops for its intermediaries to find a wide range of products easily, and this would be reinforced through retiring the Kent Reliance brand and halting BTL activity through Precise.
Adrian explained that Rely was now “doing not just the best of what both of those brands have successfully done, but a wider offering to compete with other competitors.
“We're now at that point where there’s clear direction of what the brands do, what they support. And from a broker point of view that’s better because they know which which lane to go down to source the products and the offering.”
He added that he sees Rely as a completely new arm of the company — one he has so far been pleased with since its launch.
“It's not just a refresh of the brand, it's a new lender that brings a new experience, a new look, and we're really, really pleased with how it's been received from the pilot,” said Adrian.
“We've had significant registrations already for the for the new brand as we as we go up the market, so it's great.”
