Each month, Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions sit down with a key intermediary industry figure to discuss strategy, the opportunity for brokers and the mortgage marketplace.
This month, we are sitting down with Mark Harrington (pictured), CEO of L&C Mortgages.
Harrington took on the role as L&C CEO in April this year, and has worked at the firm for nearly 21 years.
He initially joined as a mortgage and protection adviser in 2003, and was most recently chief operating officer (COO) for the company, a role he has held for around a year. Before that, he was an advice director for around three years.
Harrington was previously a sales manager for the Bath office for around four years, and has also worked across new-build, estate agency, mortgage and protection management roles.
How did you get into the mortgage industry?
Like many industry colleagues, I didn’t leave school wanting to be a mortgage adviser. It wasn’t something I’d ever targeted as a career, but I was looking for a new challenge when I applied to L&C, which was a growing company looking for advisers.
I left school at 16 to follow my love for football by accepting a two-year apprenticeship at Bristol Rovers. While this sounds glamourous, this was back in the days when cleaning boots and changing rooms took place alongside football training. Unfortunately, I was one of the many who are released at 18, but I did manage to play over 200 semi-professional games for Bath City so at least realised some of my football dreams.
After being released, I was working in an underwhelming role at a local printing company when a friend at L&C suggested I should apply. I did just this but was unsuccessful after a first interview. At that stage, I had my heart set on the job, so I let some time pass before applying again and was fortunate enough to be accepted the second time around.
I’m pleased to say that we still get plenty of friends and family referrals when we’re recruiting, something that remains important to me as a signal of getting the culture right.
I loved the atmosphere at L&C and thrived in the new role. And as they say, the rest is history. There is a book to be written there: From an unsuccessful mortgage adviser interview to CEO.
You took on the role of CEO at L&C in April this year. What have the biggest learnings been during that period?
L&C has had its fair share of change in recent years and the start of 2024 was no different. The first thing that struck me was how impressive everyone has been in taking on unexpected change and getting on with the key job of looking after our customers.
I wanted to continue the good work that had already been undertaken before I started in the role. For example, we moved to great new offices to create a better environment for colleagues and better reflect the business values, while still supporting flexible working from home, which we know is important to many colleagues. We have also been able to develop our remote working capability to broaden reach and plan to continue investing in this area of our business to reach even more customers.
It’s also underlined once again the quality of the people at L&C. No business will achieve anything without its people, and I see examples of how good our colleagues are every day.
I’m determined to ensure that everyone is treated in the way that I would like to be treated myself. You must work hard at creating the right culture and it’s something that needs to come from the top down and be something that L&C is incredibly proud of.
You have been with L&C for your whole career, starting as a mortgage and protection adviser. What have the biggest changes to the sector been in that time, and were they positive?
There have been substantial shifts in the market in my time, perhaps most notably the financial crisis of 2008/09, which led to necessary changes in the regulatory framework.
It’s sometimes easy to forget how much the market has progressed in terms of how we do business, how customers interact with brokers and the technology involved. That’s brought big positives and there’s always more that can be done, but it is still clear to me that a human is vitally important in any mortgage and protection advice business.
At the same time, it’s important to remember that what customers want from L&C and, perhaps looking back, things haven’t changed as much as everyone would think.
Our customers want help in finding the very best deal and the ability to talk through their personal circumstances without paying a fee. I want to protect that for as long as I can while making it easier for our customers to deal with us and for our advisers to concentrate on doing what they do best – providing the very best mortgage and protection advice.
The biggest challenges have been ensuring that our business is in the best position to make the most of the good times while being resilient in the downturns, which we have seen many of over the past five years.
Not many people spend their entire career in one firm, especially in the broking industry. What encouraged you to stay with L&C?
I’ve been lucky enough to experience a wide range of different roles in the business, so it’s constantly evolved for me.
At the same time, the business and the market we operate in has also been constantly changing, so I’ve had a great opportunity to be involved in different areas of the business, whether that’s mortgage advice, protection, new build, marketing, IT or team leadership.
It would be easy to say that I have become institutionalised at L&C, but with the positive and negative learning from different leadership teams, the many differing experiences and market conditions over that time combined with a strong desire to evolve, I would soon turn that on its head.
I am very proud of my journey and hope that I can act as a role model for people coming into L&C who want to progress and develop. I want to put a lot of my time and energy into ensuring that our colleagues don’t just see L&C as a job but can see themselves being able to build a career here.
Looking ahead, what are the strategic priorities for L&C and how will it go about achieving them?
In a word, I’m looking for the business to grow, both in terms of revenue and market share. I see that happening through the alignment of technology with human interaction. Making the lives of customers and colleagues simpler through technology improvements will be central to improved productivity.
Culture and colleagues are high on my priority list, so the human element is obviously key. We want colleagues that are engaged and all pulling in the same direction to make our customers’ lives better. We’ve already improved the ability to understand what our colleagues think and enhanced communication in the business through our internal colleague engagement programme.
The importance of our people makes diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) a natural focus for us as well and I’ve been delighted to see the energy in the business when it comes to this. We became members of the Financial Services Forum last year and have joined their DIFF working party. We still have some way to go, but have built great momentum that we fully intend to keep going.
Sustainability is another area where we have made good progress so far, setting up a working party dedicated to improving in this area, but we must keep working hard to do better for our colleagues and customers alike.
What is the broking landscape like at the moment in terms of volume of firms, competition, etc, and what are your expectations for the near future?
This is a good opportunity for me to say just how much good I think that the intermediary mortgage market does for its customers and recognise what an amazing job brokers do for customers, particularly over the last couple of very challenging years.
Who do we see as our competition? Everyone.
It’s such a diverse and energetic market that you need to consider every adviser as competition. There’s such a range of different models, whether it’s the newer, smaller, tech-driven brokers or a big network like MAB, there’s absolutely no room for complacency, and the moment you stand still, there will certainly be others ready to step up.
It’s been a tough market in recent years for brokers and their customers, but that has probably only helped to make customers even more understanding of the need for advice.
In the near term and long term, where do you see the biggest opportunities and challenges?
A more optimistic market will bring opportunity for all brokers and falling rates should help to improve the purchase market and trading conditions in the near term.
In terms of the opportunities for L&C, I see the further development of our culture as a key element for the longer-term success of the business.
Technology has to be an exciting opportunity for any business, and I think it will be a crucial part of our aim to provide world-class customer service through improved technology.
When it comes to challenges, I think a lot of brokers will have felt the pressure from the increased number of product transfers and the reduced remuneration that can come with it. There’s a variation in approach from lenders on this and I’d expect it to remain one that we keep revisiting.
Let’s not forget the sheer volume of work and pressure that comes with late-notice product withdrawals, which have been commonplace, particularly post the so called mini Budget nearly two years ago. This has improved over time but can still cause issues for our customers.
The same goes for the re-emerging conversation about dual pricing. Although most lenders don’t dabble, it’s disappointing to see articles highlighting brokers’ concerns over lenders pricing directly against them.
It can be a very rewarding profession at times but it’s also an incredibly pressured role when you consider some of the challenges I’ve just highlighted, particularly when a customer’s livelihood is in your hands – hats off to all brokers out there.
What is the current headcount for the business and what are the recruitment plans for the firm?
We’ve currently got over 430 advisers that provide advice on mortgages or protection in the business. They’re mostly spread across our offices in Bath and Newcastle, but we also have advisers all over the country that work remotely. They are all fully employed by L&C, which helps to maintain a consistent and controlled approach.
We continue to recruit colleagues that have never worked in the mortgage and protection market before and train and develop them. But with the flexibility that remote working gives, we have also widened our reach and are delighted to have attracted advisers with previous experience.
Pleasingly, we have also been able to welcome back some colleagues that had maybe wanted to try other challenges but are now coming back to L&C, knowing that the grass isn’t always greener. Many have returned from tech-driven companies stating that they felt like they were not giving advice to customers, so it is important for L&C to learn from that on our tech roadmap.
We have recruited this year and will continue to recruit where we think it’s right for us to maintain sustainable growth in the business. We will remain flexible in our approach, but the plan for next year will see further recruitment.
There has been an ongoing debate about broker fees, especially in light of lenders imposing broker fee caps due to Consumer Duty. Will L&C continue its fee-free structure, and do you think more advisers will go down this path?
Fee-free is part of L&C’s DNA, and continuing to offer customers fee-free mortgage advice and protection policies that don’t have loaded premiums while giving first-class customer service remains a top priority for me.
Consumer Duty has not only highlighted the need for transparency and fair value when it comes to how providers treat their customers, it has also driven lenders to think about what they consider to be a fair fee for a good service at the higher end; there are clearly outliers in our market.
That said, I’m passionate about our no-fee model and I think more and more customers will shop around given continued cost-of-living pressures. I am very proud to lead a business that doesn’t charge a fee.
I would love for every mortgage to be fee-free, but I realise that’s unlikely to happen. If other brokers are to continue with fee charging, then I think it’s important that we have greater consistency, with customers in similar circumstances paying the same fee.
What would you want people to know about L&C?
We are back. It’s been fair to say that it’s been a rollercoaster of a market in recent years, but I really feel like we’ve got L&C in good shape to progress.
We want to bring about transformation in the market by getting the right blend of human advice with technological innovation.
It’s an exciting time to be in the job and I believe we have the team in place to take L&C to new heights and build on the great heritage of the business.
I hope that we can make L&C more of a household name representing great value and one that homebuyers and owners will find a natural choice when they think about their mortgage and protection needs.
