The Group’s lending products seek to have a positive social impact, helping support the UK mortgage market for those customers underserved by the High Street lenders.

Our strategy to be the number one specialist for our customers means that we offer valued products, tools and services that support them achieving their saving and borrowing aspirations. 

We achieve this through the provision of online and telephone channels for our savings customers, in addition to our nine Kent Reliance branches in the South East of England. Our mortgage products are distributed by intermediaries, (other than the Heritable brand which is direct to developer) across England, Wales and Scotland, with whom we maintain strong relationships.

The Group places a particular importance on meeting the specialist needs of the customer which means a focus on efficient and supported onboarding for new customers alongside retaining balances and maintaining long term, customer relationships.

In 2023, as base rates continued to rise, we offered our savers attractively priced products and opened more than 210,000 new accounts. The retention rates amongst our savers remained high with 91% of customers with maturing fixed rate bonds and ISAs with Kent Reliance and 85% with Charter Savings Bank choosing to take another product with the same brand.

Our savers are keen advocates of the Group’s products and service, which was reflected in strong Net Promoter Scores (NPS), at +71 for Kent Reliance and +62 for Charter Savings Bank.

Our savings products also received industry recognition: Charter Savings Bank won Best Overall Savings Provider for the sixth year running from Personal Finance Awards, and ISA Provider of the Year from Moneyfacts Consumer Awards. Moneynet Personal Finance Awards named Kent Reliance as Best Fixed Rate Savings Provider.

Our intermediary management teams worked closely with the broker community, discussing cases and helping to deliver rapid and reliable decisions for our borrowers. In 2023, the Group’s representatives participated in over 250 physical and virtual events with brokers to understand their evolving requirements and to keep up to date with industry developments. We used this understanding to continue to improve our customer propositions and the Group’s efforts were recognised in the improved broker NPS of +57 for both OSB and CCFS in 2023.

The Group’s mortgage proposition continued to win industry awards with Kent Reliance for Intermediaries winning Best Specialist Lender from L&G Mortgage Club Awards, Precise Mortgages awarded Best Specialist Lender from TMA Club and the Group recognised as Best Specialist Bank at the Bridging and Commercial Awards.

Our efforts to create a fairer and more sustainable Private Rented Sector through our independent Landlord Leaders initiative gathered pace as we launched the Landlord Leaders Community. In December 2023, we published the second Landlord Leaders research report, providing insight into the world of private tenants: their demographics, motivations and renting experiences.

Read more about how we engage with our customers.