Specialist lender, Spring Finance, has announced enhancements to its application process to reduce the level of paperwork required and simplify requirements. The improvements include the removal of paper-based application forms where such information is provided through its portal or supplied by the intermediary or consumer, as well as simplifying standard requirements.

Roma Finance has announced the development of a mental health first aid team. The firm revealed that six mental health first aiders – James Edwards, Lisa Toner, Olivia Openshaw, Katie Murphy, Jenny Gillies and Tina Parr – have been trained with the purpose of proactively supporting colleagues and giving them the confidence to speak out if they need help with anything at work or behind the scenes. Roma also announced it is now running an employee assistance programme, which gives people the chance to speak to someone in confidence and receive free counselling if they wish.

Foundation Home Loans has launched new buy-to-let two-year fixed rate specials and introduced a new rental stress test change for shorter-term products. The lender’s new specials include F1 two-year fixes with rates starting at 5.39%, a 1% fee and one free standard valuation, F2 two-year fixed rates starting at 5.49% with a 1% fee, and F2 HMO two-year fixed rates starting at 5.54% with a 1% fee. Foundation said the new products were designed to support the introduction of its simplified ICR stress tests for shorter-term products below a five-year term including fixed and discounts, which will now be based on the higher of either the pay rate plus 2% or a flat 8%.

Newcastle Intermediaries has increased its offer validity period to six months as part of move to provide borrowers with greater peace of mind. Following feedback from brokers, the firm has extended its offer validity period from three to six months, providing comfort to homebuyers in property chains where the process can take longer, or to those customers looking to remortgage well ahead of their current deal expiring. The changes to offer validity will impact purchase and remortgage customers, while new-build applications will remain at the current offer period of nine months.

GBST has confirmed that it has renewed its strategic partnership with Novia Global. The new agreement continues the long-term relationship, with GBST technology powering the international wealth management platform since its launch in 2015. Under the agreement, Novia Global’s core technology will continue to be underpinned by the Composer wealth management platform, which is fully managed and hosted by GBST on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. Composer provides a robust, scalable API enabled SaaS solution.

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