Smart Money People, the financial services review site, has found that 83.7% of brokers either agreed or strongly agreed that BDMs play a vital role in the industry today.

Only 5.5% disagreed or strongly disagreed, with the rest unsure.

These findings were part of Smart Money People’s H2 2023 Mortgage Lender Benchmark covering mortgage broker opinions on UK mortgage lenders for the second half of 2023.

The latest bi-annual independent research study marks the eleventh edition of the Mortgage Lender Benchmark which analyses the state of the mortgage industry according to brokers’ views. The latest edition comprises feedback from over 790 mortgage brokers, providing 3,666 individual pieces of feedback on 105 lenders.

Further insight found that 32.2% of brokers said they typically first hear about a lender and what they offer from BDMs, with only product sourcing scoring higher (35%). In addition, when asking brokers what they’d consider as their most valuable form of support service to serve clients effectively, 37.3% said BDMs, beating the likes of dedicated phone lines, training programs / webinars and live chat.

Whilst the slight majority of brokers (43.3%) were happy, over a third (36.4%) said they didn’t feel their lender gave enough BDM support, with the rest unsure. Finally, one area that that came in for a lot of attention is the move from in-person BDMs to telephone-based BDMs, and less availability on the road and although some brokers seemed comfortable with this change, many blamed the apparent problems with availability and accessibility on the lack of in-person support.

Jacqueline Dewey, CEO of Smart Money People, said: “It’s clear that brokers still clearly value the role of BDMs and although they understand the need for lenders to evolve, moving too quickly to a hybrid approach is a concern and can damage that lender’s relationship with its brokers.

“Lenders who can excel in providing superior BDM support with BDMs who have good case knowledge, along with being readily available and accessible will stand out from the crowd.”