After joining The Cumberland during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ieuan started out in customer care before moving to the intermediary team in January 2022.
What are the opportunities that you see in the year ahead?
There is a real opportunity for us to build on our standing within the residential sector. Having only set up the team a year and a half ago, I am really proud of the progress the team has made in that time, and I am confident we will continue to build on this. In the Holiday Let market, we have an opportunity to set ourselves apart as the leading Holiday Let mortgage specialist.
How do you think The Cumberland’s intermediary offering stands against its competitors, now and in the future?
At the Cumberland we pride ourselves on making human decisions; we don’t rely on machines or an automated system to say yes or no. With our manual underwriting process, and dedicated relationship managers, we make sure we get a holistic picture of a customer's situation, and make common sense decisions on our mortgages. Brokers can be confident they will get a personal, dedicated service.
How does The Cumberland’s intermediary team implement the company’s Kinder Banking values?
The Intermediary team strongly resonate with the company’s kinder banking values. We keep the customer at the heart of what we do, doing everything we can to help them achieve their goals. We also have a strong community focus within the team. I am the team’s community champion, and take on the task of organizing our community engagement days where we volunteer in our local communities. Recently, we visited Eden Valley Hospice in Carlisle to help them with their garden. 3 members of the team and I also completed the Keswick to Barrow 40 mile walk to raise money for charities across our region.
How is The Cumberland's intermediary offering different to other lenders?
At the Cumberland, we understand that life isn’t always straight forward, and there are a lot of different factors to consider when looking at a customer’s circumstances. We want to make sure that we are considering relevant information when making our decisions. Our relationship managers work hard to really get to grips with a customer’s case, and we always ask ourselves: How can we make this work? Our underwriters and relationship regularly discuss cases, and work together to make sure we are getting all the relevant information necessary to make an informed decision.
What does your role in the team involve?
I am a lending officer within the team, of which there are 5 of us. My main responsibilities are arranging product transfers, helping existing customers with their queries and supporting our relationship managers with their new cases. As part of my development within the team, I have also been supporting our residential proposition, by doing decision in principle’s and quotes for our residential brokers.
Do you have any personal goals you would like to achieve through your work with the team?
I am keen to expand my knowledge of the intermediary sector and the mortgage market as a whole, so I can look to develop in future and support the function. I would like to develop in the team into a business development manager role. I’m a real people-orientated person and like meeting and learning about people, so a role in which I can build and maintain relationships is really interesting.
Can you tell us a bit more about your back story, from starting out in the industry to joining The Cumberland?
I actually started out in the acting world before moving into finance! During the Covid pandemic, I got a job in The Cumberland's Customer Care team. It was an interesting role that was crucial to supporting our customers. I worked my up in that team to become supervisor. Eventually I felt like moving into a more specific area that would challenge me to learn and grow, and the Intermediary team felt like the best place to do that. I have now been in the team a year and a half and feel I have really grown since being in my role. We are a close team who really value each other, and my manager and colleagues have been great in nurturing my development.
For more information on how our Intermediary team can support you, visit our Intermediaries page.
