Barclays acquires Kensington

I'm hoping that Kensington's systems, know-how and service standards rub off on Barclays and not the other way around. Kensington will be a good fit within the Barclays empire. With little overlap between markets, it gives Barclays access to instant growth and market share without competing with itself, or exposing the Barclays brand to higher risk business. The knowledge and skills at Kensington in terms of specialist underwriting could be a real win, too. Kensington in turn gets access to a funding line that will allow them to expand and challenge in the specialist mortgage market like never before. It will be interesting to see how well the two work together in the coming months and years, as well as seeing if any other big brand high street players make moves on any of the other specialist lenders.

This is a great bit of news. Not every client fits a high street lender shaped box and Kensington specialise in more real-life type lending scenarios. It's really exciting to see what they can do with the financial backing of a major bank.

This is fantastic news for Kensington as now they will be able secure new funding opportunities at a significantly cheaper price compared to what they are paying now. It should in theory enable them to offer a better product offering, with a lower rate and competitive fees. Barclays will benefit from the systems and processes that Kensington have in place. This is a definite win, win situation for borrowers.

Competition between lenders has increased dramatically in recent months and it will be interesting to see how this acquisition shakes up the market further. The requirements for specialist advice and access to specialist lending are only going to increase in this evolving market and, on the face of it, it seems like a smart move by Barclays.

In our opinion this is bad news for the mortgage industry and consumers, as was Barclays taking over Woolwich all those years ago. Lenders getting too big to properly handle support levels is pointless. Barclays, prior to the Woolwich takeover, provided an excellent service to advisers and consumers but afterwards it was hopeless. The same applied to Woolwich: before the Barclays takeover, they produced great results, afterwards, at Barclays, it was hopeless. A sad day in our opinion.