Masthaven MD John Hall tells of 'notable successes' on retail bank's first anniversary

Masthaven managing director John Hall has spoken of "many notable successes" as he reflected on the first year of being in business as a retail bank.

Mr Hall made his observations as Masthaven celebrates its first anniversary "with the team having achieved great professional success on behalf of the customer, along with a number of personal milestones".

He said Masthaven has enjoyed a fantastic first year and that as 2017 comes towards a close that he is delighted that "our award-winning flexible term savings product has helped to deliver much needed freshness to a savings market which is lacking in innovation". He added:

"This has contributed strongly to over £250million successfully raised in retail deposits. In our lending divisions, the transition to a bank has enabled us to offer a powerful range of lending solutions – from bridging and development finance, to both second and first-charge mortgages.

“I’d like to say a huge thank you to the Masthaven team, without whom none of this could have happened. Over the past 12 months we’ve shared some phenomenal milestones, including eight fantastic industry awards, such as Most Innovative Savings Provider in the Moneynet Personal Finance Awards; and Best Bridging Lender in the Coreco Awards.

"A strong team culture sits at the heart of the bank and we’re proud of the role everyone plays at Masthaven, all of which contributes towards our continued growth and everyday success.

“Technology enables us to do our jobs efficiently and deliver great customer service. We’re delighted that we have successfully managed to blend digital with great human skills to deliver our own style of best in class service.

"This is played out in the feedback from our satisfied customers. We take their comments seriously, and make it transparent and available on our website. Our customers say they like what we do and we’re getting it right. We’re immensely proud of this feedback and an average Feefo score of 4.6/5 for our service.”

Looking ahead, Masthaven say they will continue to review and challenge the lending sector in 2018 to perform for those borrowers that don’t fit "the ‘box-ticking’ approach of many lender"s. It also plans to roll out new savings solutions -- expanding to help business customers, as well as broadening its offering for retail customers to continue to meet their needs.

Key facts

Savings - 6,162 new savers with £252.5m worth of savings; average account balance of £41k.

Lending - completed 956 loans for £193.3m.

By loan type: First and second charge mortgages – £425m of Mortgage Decision in Principles received; 1,239 applications with a value of £148.3m, and 509 completions.

Bridging and Development Finance – 3,276 Decision in Principles received to the value of £1.48bn; 863 applications with a value of £265.2m; 377 bridging loans completed, amounting to £122.4m, and a further £22.5m lent to 70 SME house builders.

Employees: Total staff - 110 employees, of whom 48 have joined in 2017.

And Mr Hall highlighted celebrating personal moments as well as "great commercial success". He added: "The team has celebrated some momentous personal moments – from an engagement to a silver wedding anniversary and lots in between, including eight weddings, three newborns, and two new homes.

"I’m also delighted to report that during our first year of working together, our internal ‘Respect’ employee recognition scheme saw over 400 nominations over the year. I’d like to thank all our customers for choosing to bank with Masthaven, and our intermediary partners for supporting us during the past 12 months.”