SKIPTON Building Society for Intermediaries has announced new investment in its mortgage business development team as it bids to become a top ten UK lender.

The move comes following glowing recommendations around Skipton’s service with the Society being named Best Building Society in Smart Money People’s Mortgage Lender Benchmark, which covers feedback from 597 brokers on 44 lenders.

Skipton’s broker support team was also highlighted as “extremely knowledgeable and helpful” by Matthew Hillyer, associate director at Largemortgageloans.com.

The Society was placed fifth in a recent table of residential lender ratings.

Paul Fenn, Skipton’s Head of Business Development, said: “In line with the Society’s growth plans we have been reviewing the structure of our BDM team to ensure it will be fit for the future. We are delighted to announce the appointments of Carley Harrison and Kevin Crawford.”

He added: “During the past 15 months both the Telephone and Field based Business Development Managers have adapted to working differently with a heavy focus towards more virtual relationships. Whilst this has been effective and helped us maintain relationships during lockdown feedback from brokers more recently have been that they will continue to value face to face interactions where possible so we will be increasing our face-to-face contact with brokers.”

Skipton has also announced three consecutive months of record-breaking mortgage performance.

March saw a record month for mortgage completions, April saw a record month for mortgage applications and May saw a record month for rate switches.

Paul Fenn added: It’s a fantastic achievement and testament to our service and lending proposition, that we have seen Skipton thrive despite the difficult trading environments.

“As we look forward to the remainder of the year and beyond, Skipton will continue to support and invest in our brokers and our customers, helping more people to own their own homes.”