OUTSOURCING: THE PEOPLE

BEHIND THE LOANSHML provides mortgage administration services to Irish and UK

lenders, managing nearly 400,000 accounts on their behalf. It offers a

white-labelled service, which includes arrears support, call-centre staff,

market intelligence, predictive business intelligence, IT and

technology, standby servicing and related services.

Highly experienced in the Irish market with a presence since 2004, HML is Ireland and the

UK’s largest specialist mortgage servicer and the only company to have been awarded a

residential mortgage servicer in Ireland rating by international ratings agency, Standard &

Poor’s.

“Our rating underlines HML’s credentials as a provider of outsourced mortgage services and

is indicative of our desire to help Irish lenders tackle the rising arrears problem,” explains

Andrew Jones, HML’s chief executive.

Backed by Skipton Building Society, HML has been servicing Irish mortgages from its Derry

office, which employs around 330 people from both sides of the border, for the past seven

years, giving it a detailed understanding of the Irish regulatory framework.

“We understand the need to protect our clients from operational risk and our rigorous risk

governance framework ensures that borrowers are treated fairly.

“All our arrears executives who deal with Irish mortgage customers have a detailed

understanding of CCMA and CPC regulations, and the work is ring-fenced from our UK

mortgage services, while being successfully integrated into our operations,” says Jones.

The company has developed an online Standard Financial Statement, which assesses

affordability according to the MARP rules and can be made available for lenders to use in

their own offices, or as a service that HML provides to lenders whose borrowers are in

arrears.

And it hasn’t ruled out expanding its operations into Dublin. “Opening premises in Dublin is

certainly a possibility for HML, and a decision we would take if it makes business sense,”

explains Jones.

www.hml.co.uk

But that hasn’t proved a barrier to HML’s work with major Irish lenders so far, after it

successfully completed a project with Bank of Ireland UK in the second half of 2011.

The skills and technology required to migrate mortgages from a seller to buyer have been

tested and perfected over the last few years because of an increase in demand for standby

servicers on mortgage securitisations.

This means HML has to be in a position to take over servicing mortgages if the primary

servicer fails for any reason. The process requires detailed, up front, due diligence and

data mapping to make sure any transfer is seamless to the customer.

“We’re currently acting as standby servicer to more than €20bn of Irish mortgages, which

has given us a huge amount of experience in data mapping so we’re in a position to

migrate mortgages onto our own platform and take over their administration at short

notice,” says Jones.

Jones says HML is also in a unique position to add value to Irish lenders because of its

analytical capability and collections experience:

“Increasing cash collections and reducing capital provisions are traditional strengths of

HML and they can really add value for clients in current market conditions.

“We also have the largest commercially available pool of mortgage data in the UK that our

clients have drawn huge insight from. Knowing what your portfolio performance is likely to

be in six or 12 months is hugely valuable for financial provisioning and planning what

resources you’ll need.”

The Irish market is less clear cut, with a central credit bureau yet to be created, but Jones

says HML is able to adapt its UK scorecard approach to help Irish lenders get a clearer

view of the future performance of their mortgages.

To find out more about HML and its full range of services visit www.hml.ie

Originally produced for the Sunday Business Post’s ‘Outsourcing Report’, 5 February 2012