New reverse mortgages helpline a boon for sector
The establishment of a new consumer helpline by the National Information Centre for Retirement Investments (NICRI) has “proved a boon” for the sector, according to Royal Bank of Scotland head of reverse mortgages Martin Lynch.
The Equity Release/Reverse Mortgages Information Service was launched by NICRI in February, after securing an annual grant from the Federal Government.
Lynch described NICRI’s helpline as “playing an essential role as a mediator or an alternate support for the customer".
“The reverse mortgage product is quite often more about social needs of consumers than purely financial issues.
"In that sense, it's appropriate that customers have somebody they can talk to in the industry that isn’t commercially interested such as a lender or a broker."
There has already been a “few occasions where the helpline has been successful in aiding communication between us and clients", Lynch added.
“On these occasions it has not been terribly apparent what the clients wanted from us and then NICRI was able to sort this out.”
He said the helpline is also acting as an early warning system by flagging issues that are recurring among callers to the helpline.
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