Target Group has appointed Katie Pender to the position of chief operating officer (COO). She joined the firm in 2019 as head of client solutions, playing a role in the development and deployment of the group’s mortgage origination solution, Mortgage Hub. Most recently, she served as managing director of Elderbridge, a regulated lender and subsidiary of Target Group. Prior to this, Pender was a member of the project team at Vertex Financial Services, helping key retail brands, including Tesco Bank, launch into the mortgage market, and following acquisition by Captia, she served as head of mortgage operations, before joining Computershare in 2018. In her new role, Pender will support internal teams to build and develop strategic relationships with existing clients, while also focusing on driving new business growth, mobilising teams and solutions.

Hampshire Trust Bank (HTB) has announced several changes to its specialist mortgages teams, as it prepares for further growth and distribution of its specialist buy-to-let (BTL) and semi-commercial proposition in the second half of 2024. Greg Barnard has been promoted to the newly created head of field underwriting role, directly supporting HTB’s intermediary partners. In his new role, Barnard will be responsible for building a team based at the offices of broker partners, providing in-house expertise and solutions for complex cases. Ceri Blackwell has also joined HTB as head of new business. She joins from Foundation Home Loans, where she was head of underwriting. In her new role, Blackwell will lead HTB’s lending manager team, which has recently been strengthened by adding four new lending managers who provide brokers with support in packaging and processing applications.

Mansfield Building Society has announced its launch into the Scottish BTL market. The move will see the lender roll out its existing business BTL, consumer BTL and regulated family BTL products to Scottish borrowers, with some postcode restrictions in place for the Scottish islands. Loan sizes range between £50,000 and £1m, with a maximum 75% LTV available across all its BTL products. Although expat BTL is also included, the society’s SPV Ltd company BTL and holiday let lending is excluded.

---