Good morning all,

Welcome to my end of February update. As you will have seen from the message I sent yesterday here, we have announced our annual results.

You will see that there are lots of highlights, and plenty of reasons for the agency network to feel proud with the part they have played. No need for me to repeat what Mike says, but as covered in my previous update, agency balances have grown well, Agency NPS was excellent, and we are making progress with mortgage referrals and contribution to the digital agenda.  

That was 2019, and as we race through 2020 there are lots of challenges for us to rise to again. This month I will provide the usual savings update as we enter a crucial period (and a blog linked to this), an update on mortgages, plus some other updates and enhancements for agency colleagues. There's also an update on the Agency Proprietors' Council I talked about last year.

Savings

March in the savings world will be all about the start of the ISA season and the beginning of a huge period of both Fixed Rate and Single Access Saver products maturing.  

Firstly on maturities, March, April, May & June will see 166,000 accounts, worth £4.3bn maturing (agencies account for 33,627 accounts worth just over £1bn). Your DM can give you some insight about the volumes/values for your agency. As I am sure you are, we are clearly keen to retain as much of this as possible.

More on savings

The default product for the SAS (Easy Saver Plus) is an attractive option, plus we have our ‘on sale’ range as well if customers want to look at different options. Whilst your teams are engaging with these customers, they can also talk to them about their accounts elsewhere, other bonds, their rainy day funds, their regular savings, and of course their ISAs.

This week’s retail brief covered in detail our plans for the ISA season starting now for the end of tax year and continuing into the new tax year in April & May.  To help, we are bringing back the Access Saver ISA Plus account to plug the gap you and your teams have called out between the Annual Access Account ISA and our Instant ISA product. In the new tax year we will also be launching an ISA version of the regular saver, and a 20/21 subscription only product. As mentioned in previous updates, there is still a huge % of the savings market sat with the big banks likely earning a pittance, and widening that conversation and promoting our full range of products will help you grow your balances and make your customers better off. Currently only approximately 20% of customers who open an account go on to open another soon after. We’d like to see this increase to deepen the relationships you have with customers, and of course increase the accounts and balances held.

Mortgages

The coordinated approach for Mortgage Adviser engagement is already paying off with more referrals in January than any month last year, with February on course to be the same. We have had 10 cases go to application compared to 3 this time last year.

This progress is down to your DM, Local MA and mortgage managers working together to support your colleagues in a consistent manner. If you have not already had a visit this quarter you can soon expect one to discuss customer engagement, spotting opportunities and having a conversation with suitable customers.  

More on mortgage progress

We told you at last year’s event and in subsequent messages that as it is a very competitive market, we are hoping to appeal to other markets, so have since changed our criteria to broaden the number of customers we can help. This has included:

• Reduction in number of years accounts needed for self-employed customers from 3 years to 2 years
• Introduction of 40 year terms
• Introduction of max age 80
• New LTV tier at 80% LTV
• New FTB only exclusive ranges launched with cashback up to £1000

This hopefully increases the number of ‘suitable customers’ you may see in your agencies, or in fact the families of those you see.This obviously applies to those of you who submit mortgages directly, remember to speak to your underwriting team for any case specific pre-submission queries.

Network update and news

Your team will now benefit from Single Sign On – so they only need to remember one password to gain access to all YBS systems – this was piloted in agencies in London and the North West areas and is now live across the network.

We have also this week enabled individual e-mail addresses for all agency colleagues who use the YBS system, bringing benefits such as encouraging communication across internal teams and getting ready for Office 365 roll out in the future.

More network updates & news

Agency colleagues can also now access ‘Ignite’ which is an internal platform which encourages engagement with colleagues across the YBS group on all subjects, and allows for local groups to be set up to share ideas and best practice. Your DM will provide more details.

In the last week we held a Fraud Event across 100 branches and 12 agencies. This focused on creating awareness for our customers and the general public about how they can help protect themselves from different types of scams. There will be more events/customer drop ins on different topics later in the year – a great way to further raise the profile of your agency in your local communities and provide real help.

National Employee Appreciation Day – 6 March

Next Friday, YBS will be marking National Employee Appreciation Day; a national awareness day designed to encourage employers to take time out to say thanks to their employees. This is the fourth year that YBS has celebrated the day, with our focus being on manager-led tokens of appreciation (I’m expecting a lot of cakes, cards and daffodils in our branches and offices next Friday, if previous years are anything to go by!).

We will also be publishing Society-wide communications about the day on Tuesday and Friday next week, and these will be viewable to your employees who have access to our intranet. I wanted to make you aware of this in case our internal communications lead to your team asking you questions about Appreciation Day.

WAN Update

Work continues to ensure the completion of this project as soon as possible. I will write separately with a more detailed update and instructions on this in early March. In the meantime you may continue to receive visits, so please allow them access to do the work required.

Business Support Update

The team have recently seen 4 out of the 7 regular team members promoted into new roles in different teams within the organisation. The recruitment of their replacements is well under way, and whilst we hope you won’t notice any change in the service your teams will receive (apart from some different voices!), I wanted to flag up the fact that there will be a period of transition. If you have any concerns, then please feel free to contact the team manager Bobbie Jagger-  BJagger@ybs.co.uk

Finally

I’m pleased to announce the 1^st meeting of the agency council – the members can be seen below, and the first meeting is set for Wednesday 1^st April.

Once we have held this meeting, the council or I will update you with what was discussed, and what the next steps are, so that the council can represent you going forward.

Members of the council 

Anita Morley – Bexhill/Lewes/Eastbourne
Chris Nicolaou – Chichester/Fareham
Jatin Mistry – Leicester GL
Jim Burns – Wilmslow/Littleborough
Mark Blair - Giffnock
Martin Jackson – Lichfield/Sutton Coldfield
Michael Ward – Ryde
Paul Cuffling – Conisborough
Rhys Culley – Carmarthen
Laura Clifton – Cambridge/St Ives/Flitwick
Paul Wadsworth – Abergavenny

Take a look at our ISA blog and video

As we continue our YBS focus for the Growth Series communications, take a look at our latest blog here which focuses on ISAs - 'Are your customers working their savings as hard as they can?'. There's also a useful video you can watch.