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Mortgage lender licensed today sees £100m in enquiries for long-term fixed rates in hours

sarahdavidson
Written By:
sarahdavidson
Posted:
Updated:
16/08/2022

A brand new mortgage lender focused on lending to borrowers who want to fix their mortgage long-term saw more than £100m of enquiries in its first day.

Perenna received its banking licence with restrictions from the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) earlier today. This means it is an authorised bank but needs to confirm its banking infrastructure and have restrictions lifted before it can start lending.

However Colin Bell, chief operating officer of Perenna, said that the firm had already had over £500m of enquiries to date, with over £100m coming in today in the first few hours of the news of it receiving its banking licence.

He added that it was already doing the work to get restrictions lifted and it aimed to be issuing mortgages in the first quarter of next year.

According to reports in the Financial Times, the lender could offer rates of four to 4.5 per cent on the 30 to 50-year loans, although this is subject to gilt yields at the time the products go live.

The report also said that it was planning on working with challenger banks as distribution partners, letting them using the funding platform to issue loans.

The lender had initially started seeking lending authorisations from the regulator in 2019, targeting a launch later that year, but this was delayed.

“Gaining a banking licence takes time, we are doing something new in the UK. But we are there now with restrictions, and we are looking forward and working on going live,” Bell said.

Perenna is the latest lender to target the long-term fixed rate space, with the like of Habito, Kensington Mortgages and Landbay launching products this year.