Believe Newsletter - June 2023

Welcome!

Welcome to our brand new newsletter! It’s a quarterly update full of news and announcements from across our business, and it’ll help us all stay in touch.

We believe clear communication with our amazing team is really important, so this regular newsletter will help us share all kinds of updates. It’s designed to keep you connected with the whole Believe family wherever you happen to be based.

It matters to us that everyone feels included in what’s going on at Believe, so whether you work in Stockport or Doncaster, this newsletter will bring you all the latest business insights, along with news about competitions and social events that we’d love you to get involved in.

Going the extra mile to help our customers is key to what we do at Believe, and making sure you feel informed and involved will help us all work effectively as a team. So if you have any ideas about things you’d love our newsletter to cover, just drop us a line – and until next time, have a great summer!

Thank you for all your hard work and support.

Ian & Ryan

Our new Employee of the Month award

£500 TO SPEND ON ANYTHING!

YOU CHOOSE, WE BUY!

We all know our Believe team is packed with stars, so we decided it was about time we launched our Employee of the Month award – a chance to recognise team members who really shine!

With so many incredible people across our team, it’s bound to be a tough decision, but each month one of our star performers will win a prize of their choice up to a value of £500.

From mini-breaks to iPads to televisions to designer handbags, if it’s up to £500 in value, our winner can take it home!

So how will our Employee of the Month be chosen?

Everyone can nominate a colleague who they think goes above and beyond to deliver great service, and there’ll be nomination boxes in each office for this purpose. Teams from across our business will nominate their monthly star performer, with team leaders making the monthly submission. Remember though, everyone can nominate!

This is your chance to recognise – and potentially reward – great performance by those around you. And who knows, if you work hard and live up to your potential, maybe those around you will nominate you too.

Of course, we believe outstanding service is its own reward – but with prizes up to £500 in value available, our Employees of the Month will find that working hard at Believe becomes even more rewarding than ever before!

Employee of the Month - June MOLLY HUGHES

Congratulations to Molly who is our first Employee of the Month winner!

Molly was placed in the role as Team Leader at our Doncaster Academy - helping the new case managers not yet experienced on the team. It has been a great success and has become a permanent role!

It has been great to see Molly think about the wider group, she has been more than happy to travel over to Stockport over the last few weeks, often staying over to allow for more time in the office. She has shown a great mindset throughout and has been a fantastic advocate for the business - exactly what we want to see from a believer!

Well Done Molly!

Market update

Market conditions have been challenging ever since last September’s budget, and the uncertainties have continued throughout the first half of this year. We do appreciate how difficult it’s been for every business within the group.

For example, the base rate increases have caused difficulties for lenders, and we’re seeing our lending partners respond in different ways when reviewing both pricing and criteria.

Most recently, Skipton Building Society has launched 100% mortgages – something we haven’t seen since 2008. They clearly feel confident that house prices won’t fall, and the market will recover as we move into H2. On the other hand, we’ve seen another lender take a completely different position, with Tandem Bank moving its 100% second charge mortgages down to 95% – they expect equity to drop slightly in the next 12 months.

This variation in opinion is challenging for a broker like us. We’d much prefer to see stability across our lending panels.

As for inflation, it’s now moving in the right direction. Hopefully, the decreasing rate will give the mortgage market the stability it needs, giving customers more certainty when making financial decisions.

I do think we’re seeing lenders relaxing affordability calculations due to there being more economic certainty and confidence in employment and house prices. This is backed up by the fact that over the last two months, approval rates have jumped to the highest they’ve been since the Truss mini-budget was announced.

The big positive for Believe is the number of customers coming up for review with fixed rates ending – more than 1.4 million by the end of the year. In June 2021, the average fixed rate was 2.59% compared to the current average of 5.26%. This should create opportunities across all our group’s lending businesses.

Hopefully, with falling inflation and increasing stability across all markets, the second half of the year should start to be more productive and enjoyable for us all.

With the likes of Admiral and Provident entering the specialist mortgage market – both extremely large brands – we have a clear sign that specialist mortgages are expected to see big growth in the next few years. We feel extremely positive about the months ahead. Let’s hope the tough market conditions are coming to an end!

The first half of the year has been a real rollercoaster ride.

In January, we got off to a fantastic start with both lead prices and conversions being the best they’d been since pre-COVID days. Unfortunately, this gave us a false sense of security and numbers plummeted in March across every business in the group – a rough ride that was experienced industry-wide.

We then had a disastrous April with numbers down 40% across every vertical due to the bank holidays and lender timescales. May brought improvements across all product lines, however, and we should finish H1 with a strong operational performance to help us kick on to the rest of the year.

The unsecured lending market is currently difficult –we’re making fewer offers and interest rates are high when we do make them, which means that access to personal finance for most consumers is limited. This does play well into our Believe offering, however, with lead flow reaching other businesses within the group.

We’re continuing to serve Zopa declines well this year, with improved revenue increasing our lead flow month on month. We’ve also increased our direct marketing, and our new affiliate partnerships and additional revenue streams are all contributing to further growth through this channel.

In June, a new lender decline partner has gone live, we now service Bamboo loan declines as well as Zopa Bank declines. We also are working with some additional affiliate partnerships. With new revenue streams and a wider lender panel, we’re making good progress as we head into the second half of the year.

We’re currently experiencing tough market conditions, with recent rate rises making business very challenging. It seemed we were seeing some stability towards the end of Q1 as sales and sub numbers started to improve, but base rate increases have led to more customer nervousness, and that’s having a big impact on both lead and price conversion.

For the year’s second half, we’re working on a few different lead strategies that should create more opportunities. Many of our existing customers will also be looking to review both the first charge and second charge we completed for them – again, we should see some big opportunities arise from this.

Believe Finance remains a key part of the group, and with improving market conditions and a range of new initiatives, we do envisage positive results in H2.

The first half of the year has seen significant rises in the rates we’re selling to customers, and that’s made things challenging. When we launched, we were offering second charge loans at 2-3%, but we’re now advising on rates around 8-12% – a big impact on our customers’ monthly payments.

Placing customers on affordability with lenders has also been a challenge, with tight lending calculations and stress testing at the start of the year. The last few months have been more positive, with pricing getting better and affordability calculations relaxing.

Hopefully, lender appetite will increase in H2, and we can hit our projected numbers. With the resources we have across both Doncaster and Stockport, we should be able to complete 300 second charge mortgages a month – a milestone we’d love to achieve by the end of 2023.

Expectations were high at the start of 2023, but customers are struggling financially and will continue to do so into H2.

Month after month, however, we’re seeing improvements, and by the end of H1 we do think we’ll be achieving the completion numbers we planned when we launched. We see opportunities with both the products we sell and with more lenders being added to the panel, and Believe Specialist Finance is now a key part of the group.

Believe Protect is now the biggest it’s been since we launched in June last year. Our advisor headcount has doubled, and we have the resources to take full advantage of the opportunities created across the group.

We believe consumer duty will be key for this business, with more emphasis being put on case management in our lending businesses ensuring customers are completing a protection review.

We hope everyone in the group understands that protection is now at the heart of every transaction we complete, and we need all staff to embrace and promote Believe Protect to make sure all our customers are protected.

Partnerships

So far this year we’ve forged new partnerships with Clearscore and Totally Money – both welcome additions. These new partners are both credit report platforms with millions of customers, so we’re excited about this huge potential for growth.

All our partnerships are proving successful, and we’ve been able to originate mortgages across each Believe business – a real showcase of our group’s true power. They’ve been particularly impressed with the protection we offer, creating a great all-round solution for their declined customers.

As for the rest of this year, opportunities include linkups with more credit platforms, more comparison sites, and more lender declines and white label partnerships. Clearly, these are exciting times!

Our contact centre

Our contact centre has evolved and grown over the last 12 months, and has performed strongly. We’ve doubled our customer associates, and worked hard to create a strong work ethic and inclusive culture.

Our Believers transfer over 3,000 clients a month and contact over 70% of enquiries – well above the achievements of other businesses. We’ve combined many campaigns – an efficiency gain – and we prioritise leads based on the propensity to complete and generate income. Formalised scripting and a formal induction programme are helping ensure we offer a consistent service, and our team also now re-engage with previous customers and chase up Evolution submissions, while at the same time generating their own income from UK credit submissions.

We aren’t stopping here though! We’ll soon have new screens to help guide a better customer journey, and further improvements to help make sure we place

CASE OF THE QUARTER

WIN A DUVET DAY!

Every quarter, we will select a case where we have seen all the attributes of a “star sale”. The winner will get a well-deserved rest with a duvet day.

To enter please send a summary of the case, customer and all details to support the data provided by the system to: HR@believemoney.com

It may be you had a tricky, sad, distressed, or difficult customer but the job you did made the difference. Hitting commercial KPI’s is incredibly important, but the additional information is key to delivering the 5-star service we aim for on every case.

We can’t wait to read your submissions – please don’t be shy in sharing.

Good luck team!

Come to our Summer Party!

Summer is a great time for a party, and who better to party with than our brilliant Believe team? Our summer get-together is a chance for us all to meet up, relax and enjoy each other’s company, and we hope you’ll join us for some fun.

We look forward to welcoming you along to spend some quality time with your Believe colleagues – so let’s make it a summer party to remember!

Doncaster Races

Saturday 19th August

Afternoon of racing on the Champagne Lawn followed by an evening of live music Hacienda Classical.

Gates open at 12.30pm and the first race will begin shortly after 2pm.