As ‘industry godfather’ John Malone turns 80 today, mortgage market veteran James Chidgey pays tribute to the founder of Premier Mortgage Service and reflects on his career and legacy…
There will be many folk who were practicing in the 2000s, as well as those still in the mortgage lending and advice business, who are familiar with John Malone, founder and former managing director of Premier Mortgage Service (PMS), and known affectionately, but with good cause, as the ‘Industry Godfather’.
In 1996, long before regulated mortgage networks existed, PMS launched itself as a new Mortgage Club, targeting IFA’s, mortgage brokers and direct sales life salesmen, providing a direct route to a procuration fee which was largely closed to them at the time. John also initiated and ran an annual series of ‘mortgage events’ bringing together lenders, advisers and brokers around the country. A decade later, PMS were responsible for a massive 25% share of intermediary mortgage completions.
John’s background was in insurance and estate agency in Scotland, and he was quick to spot how a disparately-structured UK mortgage market could be brought together, particularly when it came to distribution to customers. John took the PMS mortgage proposition, and the opportunities it posed for lenders, into the board rooms of building societies and big High Street names, who either didn’t understand intermediaries, or who were hooked into selling through their branches. John’s legacy from this is all around us today.
During the 2000’s John was a significant player in early discussions with the lender’s trade body, now UK Finance, and newly arrived regulators, the FSA and successor body, the FCA, as they began to understand the role of intermediaries and the relationships lenders had with brokers.
But most of all he was always looking to help the cause of the ordinary mortgage broker, and to be its unpaid spokesman, long before the creation of their own trade body, Ami.
Happy birthday John. I am sure the whole industry will join me in wishing him many happy returns of the day.
James Chidgey, Nationwide Building Society (1986-2015), Mortgage Advice Bureau (2015-2020)
