I hope you are well and that you are enjoying a safe and busy start to 2021.
Against a very challenging background, I was delighted to see that total lending from 2020 Q4 and final year market data held steady at c£3.9bn year on year. I believe this shows that the fundamentals of our market remain robust and our sector has been successful in meeting the needs of customers who wish to choose the option of equity release.
It is fitting that as the Council approaches our 30th year as a standards-setter that we welcome Kelly Melville-Kelly and Sue Read who form our new risk, policy and compliance team (RPC). They will play a key role to support the evolution of our standards as we seek to grow a safe consumer-focused later life lending market. I am also delighted to inform you that we have recruited Lorraine Cox to be our first Member Services and Business Development Manager and Simon Posner, as Public Affairs Manager. I very much hope you can meet with Lorraine, Simon, Kelly and Sue in person, when we are able. These recruitments are very important as we seek to find more ways to provide our members with additional services and value. You can now see the entire team here who bring years of valuable and hard-won experience and expertise to support our members. Please do find out more on the RPC team here as well as our new public affairs manager and member services and business development manager.
We have also published insightful reports which highlight the role that property wealth can play to solve significant domestic policy issues. At the tail end of 2020 we launched our Pensions/Paradox revisited report supported by Key, which examines trends over the last year in older homeowners’ plans for financing retirement and confidence levels in maintaining living standards in later life. And this week we published Solving the social care funding crisis: perspectives on the contribution of property wealth. The report lays bare the extent of public concern and confusion over the cost of later life care and found that two in three over 70-year-olds are determined to stay in their own homes if they ever need care in future. It was supported by Pure Retirement and My Care Consultant and includes essays from leading experts, including Rt Hon Damian Green MP and Dr Louise Overton and is a valuable contribution to this important debate as we approach the Budget and anticipated Government social care funding reforms.
I am also delighted we were able to send members a preview of our new competency framework (login required) ahead of the market launch on February 23. The framework is made up of six modules designed to guide advisers’ journeys from entering the market to achieving competent status, by benchmarking their knowledge and skills as well as signposting materials to support their progress. It is a huge accomplishment led by our chief operating officer Donna Bathgate who was supported by an expert working group, made up of Council members.
Our proactive engagement with the media, regulators, government and key stakeholders on your behalf, has also been reflected in January – not just by increased Website traffic (35% y-o-y growth) but the busiest January for national media coverage for three years and six years across all title. 49% of non-trade coverage included the call to use a Council member!
We continue to seek to evolve the ways in which we can provide value for our members and are proud that in the most challenging of years the Council saw membership growth of 16%. Please do take part in our member census, so we can understand better how to improve our services for you. In addition, please do let us know if you would like our Chair, David Burrowes to visit as part of his Zoom-tour of the country by emailing [email protected].
Other highlights in the newsletter include an interview with some of the winners of January’s Equity Release Awards, kindly sponsored by Pure; a glimpse into e.surv Business Development Director Richard Sexton’s working week; news from LV=, L&G, Canada Life and others; as well as an information for members on our AGM.
Kind regards and please stay safe!
Jim Boyd
Equity Release Council CEO
