Filling the void with a specialist solution

“I had a self-funded, 65-year-old retiree and so none of the banks wanted to touch the application because of age, the restrictions around age and that type of thing.

But Pepper took a commercial approach to it and were able to provide a solution.

There would have been more than five or six more lenders that we’d approached from a credit perspective. We’d gone to them with an email or a conversation around that and they weren’t happy to even consider it or have an application go in.

Pepper just stood out and they workshopped it with us.

They helped us with the customer in terms of going through the application process, getting it through credit and it ended up being as smooth as silk.

That client was just looking to basically extract funds to be able to purchase an investment property and they were asset-rich and cash-poor and they just didn’t have the option to do so with any other provider.

Purchasing an investment property was the initial goal and they were able to do that.”

Melissa Gielnik, director, Smart Lending:

“There were some everyday people who had good jobs, they had been in the country for eight years and they were British.

We placed them with their first loan and they had a car loan and a credit card which they wanted to consolidate.

They were around their early 40s and their credit score declined with everyone but not for any obvious or apparent reason. 

We were able to place them with a specialist lender at the same rate as a normal bank and they were happy.

They weren’t looking for a short-term solution. They were looking for a good loan where they could pay off extra and we were able to help them do that."

Hank Hong, senior mortgage broker, Home Loan Experts:

"If a client has a default, liquidation, bankruptcy, court record – anything that’s credit report-related – then automatically it can go to a specialist lender and they’ll take on that deal with no issues.

Someone like Pepper, who is a major player in this game at the moment, can go with a higher LVR, like 80-90 per cent, and they’re really helpful in a lot of situations.

Pepper is one of my number one go-to places and they’re now branching out a lot into normal rates and their rates there are fantastic as well.

The reason I go to a specialist lender is that the credit assessors find a way to approve a deal. Because specialist lending is not a normal ‘tick-tick-tick-tick, it’s a deal’, the credit assessor uses their brain and old school thinking, basic common sense, which is often lost now in the whole credit scoring system.

Specialist lenders are really quick as well; they will come back to you in 24 hours. They will tell you 'yes, we are happy to do this' and then when you get approved, they will back up their words, rather than some banks saying 'yes, yes, yes, send it in' and then when you send it in they say 'sorry, mortgage insurance says no'.

It’s a different ball game."