Simply in the Loop
We are happy to share with you our third partner newsletter, from the team at Simply!
Read on for more on case studies; CBILS, new documentation, as well as a meet the team, udpate from our COO, Ylva and a feature from our famous underwriter Mr Steve Farago!
COVID-19
As the current pandemic continues, we want to again take the opportunity to thank you for your continued support and to remind you that we are here to help your customers obtain the finance they need at this time.
Remember!
— We can sign all documents (other than deeds) via an electronic signature platform, DocuSign.
— We have open banking where we can quickly obtain 3 months up to date bank statements for proposals if the customer is unable to get them over to you.
Please contact brokers@simply.finance for further information on all the above.
SIMPLY BROKER PORTAL
Our online portal has plenty of useful information for brokers, as well as all our finance documentation.
You will see us refer to our broker portal a few times in this newsletter. you can access it via the link below!
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS OUR BROKER PORTAL
Please request the password from brokers@simply.finance if you do not already have it!
SIMPLY CBILS
We are open to funding CBILS.
Before you submit a proposal you are required to complete a CBILS survey which we can send to you on request. Please send all CBILS proposals and survey requests to brokers@simply.finance
For each CBILS proposal, a customer questionnaire must be submitted with it for credit to review. You can find a copy of this on the portal or request it from the broker support team.
Our minimum deal size is £75k and please discuss pricing for CBILS with your BDM as it will differ from the new rate card.
New documentation
We have updated our documentation to incorporate recent changes, including our new address. All our most up-to-date documents can be found in our broker portal however if there’s anything you can’t find please let a member of the team know and we can send it over!
GOOD NEWS STORY
We recently transacted a sale and hp back deal for three transporter trucks to consolidate current exposure spread across multiple funders. This transaction enabled the customer to both settle the bounce back loan they had taken out and release some funds into the business to continue to grow in this current climate.
“This was probably the most challenging deal in my time with Simply due to complications over title and it’s one that many other funders would have turned away for that reason, it was mainly down to the tenacity and support of the back office support team that we managed to get the deal paid out in such a timely manner.” – William Devine
What challenges were there?
— Two incumbent funders involved
— Historic asset swaps taken place on the agreements… without support commentary
— Incorrect registration on original docs
— Incorrect details registered on HPI
It took a lot of orchestrating and work to get this one through, but we worked through it all with the customer and broker to come to a solution!
Do you have a customer in need of an equity release on assets or one that wants to consolidate current exposure? Speak to your BDM to see if we can help!
NEW RATE CARDS
We have lowered our minimum rate and increased the commission we pay. We now have 3 different rate cards as we have introduced a new lower rate for AA credit.
The rate cards are colour coded and this will come through on your approval along with the specific card that related to the approval given so you know exactly which one to use.
You can find our new rate cards on the broker portal along with our credit policy detailing how we score the credit. You can also speak to your BDM if you have any further questions on this
OUR CREDIT APPETITE HAS CHANGED
We have amended the temporary credit appetite that was introduced last year:
— Our approvals are now valid for 60 days (was 14)
— The maximum term is now 7 years (was 5 years)
— We will consider new start businesses if the main shareholder is either a homeowner or the business can evidence 12 months trading history.
— We will consider VAT deferrals if the customer us up to date with HMRC and we have a copy of their last VAT return.
WEBINAR TRAINING
Recently the broker division here at Simply ran our first broker webinar!
Thank you to all of you who attended, we hope you found the content useful. It was great having the opportunity to share our knowledge with you and put some names to faces!
During this session we covered the following topics:
— Document generation
— E-Signature
— Payout process
For those of you who were unable to attend you can catch the full webinar and supporting documents on the broker portal.
Keep your eyes peeled for communication on the next webinar we are due to run – we would love to see you all there!
Customer app
To add more value to your customers, we are also ready to roll out a new customer app. This app helps your customers with everything they might need in relation to their agreements, such as having all agreements accessible in one place, be able to see all relevant information about invoices and payments and submit changes of details etc. The customer app will speak with your app so if a customer requests anything such as a settlement figure then you will be notified straight away. They can even request a call back from you through their app!
OPEN BANKING
Remember during these uncertain times your customers can share bank statements with us safely and securely through open banking.
‘THE FACTS’
— It’s completely secure – (the banks wouldn’t be signed up if it wasn’t!)
— No login details are saved anywhere
— We get a 12-month snapshot – not continuous access
— It’s best for them to click on the link and follow the instructions on whatever device they normally use to access their accounts.
Visit our portal or reach out to the support team for our how-to-guides and the link to send to customers!
The key to quicker decisions! – “The open banking summaries really are helpful and get me to making a decision SO MUCH faster” – Steve Farago
MEET GEORGIA
Favourite colour: pink
Favourite TV show: You. Dead to Me, The Queen’s Gambit and a lot of other bingeworthy Netflix shows.
Drink of choice: Gin and sparking elderflower.
Where you can find her on a Friday night: On the sofa with a homemade lockdown cocktail.
Dream holiday destination: Adventure holiday to Everest base camp.
“I recently graduated from the University of Nottingham with a Master’s in physics and am so excited to have landed my first job at Simply! Previously, I have completed internships in operations at Rolls-Royce as well as in consulting (related to CRM) at a small, local firm. Now, I am ready to forge my career in finance.
I am currently based in London and in my spare time I enjoy hiking, netball and honestly, the pub.”
SIMPLY E-TRACK
We have been busy building technology to help you help your customers. You have told us that a quick decision, simple process and clear view of status of the deal are important factors. So, we are in the final phases of building what we call the Simply E-Track.
This will allow you to:
— Online proposal submission and management
— Track your deal with live updates at every stage from prop to payout
— Generate your own documents to either print or E-sign
— See all the information on every customer you have with Simply.
— Enable you to request settlement figures at the touch of a button.
— View your pipeline and other relevant management information.
The Simply E-Track will be accessible through our Broker App available both on mobile and on the web. The plan is to launch this in Q2 2021, we are now looking for brokers to help us pilot it.
STEVE FARAGO from the underwriter’s desk – the origin story.
Greetings from the Grumpy Moa-Hunter’s Desk (if you don’t get the joke, you better re-read the last issue because what a story you missed).
So how are things looking in the Underwriting Queue at present? Yes, being very British (we are the British Business Bank’s biggest recipient of Enable Funding) there must be a queue. FIFO (for those of you who have missed the fabulous life changing experience of have an accounting teacher or professor explain to the principle of inventory valuation), First In First Out is how it is supposed to be managed. Sometimes it’s like the line at Disney World – Optimised as per Queuing Line Theory, there are no separate lines for different underwriters so you don’t have to fear that the little old lady in front of you is going to start pulling out pennies from a purse, while the queue next to you has 3 teenagers with debit cards that just tap and go. Of course we all know that if you bet on the line with the teenagers, it turns out they don’t have enough money on their debit cards and so they painfully ask the checkout clerk to start removing items and see how much they each cost while Granny had worked out exactly how much change was needed in advance and UGH you shouldn’t have changed lines!!
In that story what you have probably missed is the moral of the story which is that Queuing line theory at Disney Land works, everybody gets a turn and the line moves efficiently while you only threaten to kill Mickey Mouse if they play “It’s a Small World After All” one more time. At Simply Credit we try very hard to maintain the discipline around Queuing Line Theory and not let the “He who shouts the loudest” disturb the flow. Surprisingly, at Simply the Queue Jumpers usually end up at my humble Canadian feet. At this point, you might be thinking of the mighty Canadian Beaver, the ever-efficient dam builder or perhaps the UN Blue Beret Peacekeeper. How very reassuring for those Urgent deals. Well, that unfortunately would be WRONG!!
They come to the Canadian because of my Ice Hockey Roots – RTT/Vijay or Nick “allows” Broker trying to bypass the queue through the first line of defense. The broker puts his head down smiling to himself that he will now have an easy shot on net but (can you play the Jaws Theme) this is where 6’3 85 kg Farago comes out of nowhere skating hard and HAMMERS the broker into boards with the cleanest meanest hip check ever. Now that’s real Queuing Line Theory!!
Seriously, we understand at Simply that sometimes there are genuinely urgent deals but in reality, we in the credit team are very proud of our ability to keep the queue moving quickly so that you aren’t humming “It’s a Small World” for the rest of the week. So have confidence in the Simply credit queue.
Thank you for filling the queue with great deals.
Farago
YLVA OERTENGREN, COO how we have weathered the storm
Little did we know that only three years old, we would be tested on this to the extent we have been in the last months… Covid forced us to shift from office-based to virtual overnight, we had to ask a majority of staff to shift from one job to another almost on a weekly basis and business priorities re-evaluated day by day.
We remained open throughout. We had no downtime. We kept our target turnaround times. We improved our customer feedback.
And at the same time, we continued build and development, we kept lending and we grew our loan book.
All of the above was made possible by having the right foundations. Building a new business with the ambition to grow as fast as we have, is challenging and things can change rapidly. The operations team set out to achieve this by remaining focused on the customer journey, ensuring robust controls and, most importantly, build for the unknown. The goal was to build a flexible, scalable, robust platform that could weather any storm.
We never thought the ultimate test of whether or not we have succeeded was going to come in the shape of Covid.
The strength in our operations was proven in many ways.
- When lockdown was introduced, we switched from office based operations to home based with zero interruption to any of our processes. All customer interactions were maintained, all lines of communications remained open and staff was 100% operational throughout the transition.
- Our service standards have been maintained. Our target turnaround times for all process steps were achieved and we were able to get deals done as quickly as we normally would.
- Covid meant that many of our customers needed help and we were able to meet those requirements. Our systems were able to support the flexibility required and we automated the newly designed process in a matter of days.
- The processing in some parts of the business more than doubled and others reduced significantly. Thanks to great efforts from everyone involved, we were able to meet demand by reallocating staff to where needed almost on a daily basis. Many people switched jobs multiple times without issues.
- Our people really made all the difference. At no point did our staff engagement drop. Everyone stepped up to the challenge and helped where needed.
The above didn’t stop us from progressing our tech development roadmap without interruption.
The pandemic has caused enormous hardship to great businesses across the country. Our mission was to be there for them and help them through the difficult period. In order to be able to support our partners and customers with uninterrupted service, we needed strong foundations.
Looking back, we believe we can safely say that we passed the test. We had achieved our goal to build a platform that could weather a storm.
Times will continue to be difficult for a while, but we are here for our customers.