Bradford & Bingley reins in mortgage lending

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by Lin Freestone

The troubled mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley is to close its mortgage processing centre in Borehamwood, with the loss of 300 jobs. The group is also planning to cut back its sales team.

As part of its plans to make annual savings of £15m by reducing its mortgage lending, the jobs of the company’s 50 remaining branch-based mortgage advisers are being cut. Earlier this year, the lender cut the jobs of 110 mortgage advisers at its branches.

The buy-to-let specialist has recorded first-half losses of £26.7m as a result of a rise in bad debts and losses on mortgage-backed investments.

In an attempt to improve its balance sheet, Bradford & Bingley has announced that it has written off or sold all of its mortgage-backed securities or bad debt.

The lender has no plans to reduce the number of branches in operation, which stands at 300, with a strong emphasis in the north of the country. These branches stand at the heart of its business.

On a different front, the mortgage arrears function is to be expanded with approximately 70 further positions in order to increase the capacity for collections.

It is anticipated that the changes to be implemented will focus the business as a strong savings bank, reducing the size of its lending activities and increasing its capacity in arrears collection.