IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boe/boeewp/1104.html

The effect of mortgage brokers on banks’ business models

Author

Listed:
  • Marcus Buckmann

    (Bank of England)

  • Buckmann Eccles

    (Bank of England)

Abstract

We study the effects intermediaries have on the UK mortgage market by exploiting the strong increase in broker intermediation between 2013 and 2020. Our findings indicate that this rise coincided with more households choosing mortgages with a short fixed term, due to brokers steering households towards these mortgages to increase fees from repeat business. Increased broker intermediation also enabled smaller lenders to reach more customers by geographically diversifying their mortgage portfolios, which gave smaller lenders the opportunity to specialise their mortgage portfolios, concentrating on long fixed-term and high LTV mortgages.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcus Buckmann & Buckmann Eccles, 2025. "The effect of mortgage brokers on banks’ business models," Bank of England working papers 1104, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:1104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2024/the-effect-of-mortgage-brokers-on-banks-business-models.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benetton, Matteo & Eckley, Peter & Garbarino, Nicola & Kirwin, Liam & Latsi, Georgia, 2021. "Capital requirements and mortgage pricing: Evidence from Basel II," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    2. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco, 2003. "Household Risk Management and Optimal Mortgage Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1449-1494.
    3. Guiso, Luigi & Pozzi, Andrea & Tsoy, Anton & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Mistrulli, Paolo Emilio, 2022. "The cost of steering in financial markets: Evidence from the mortgage market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1209-1226.
    4. Viral V. Acharya & Iftekhar Hasan & Anthony Saunders, 2006. "Should Banks Be Diversified? Evidence from Individual Bank Loan Portfolios," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(3), pages 1355-1412, May.
    5. Daniel Bergstresser & John M. R. Chalmers & Peter Tufano, 2009. "Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Brokers in the Mutual Fund Industry," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 4129-4156, October.
    6. Martin R. Goetz & Luc Laeven & Ross Levine, 2013. "Identifying the Valuation Effects and Agency Costs of Corporate Diversification: Evidence from the Geographic Diversification of U.S. Banks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(7), pages 1787-1823.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    2. Karakaya, Neslihan & Michalski, Tomasz K. & Örs, Evren, 2022. "Banking integration and growth: Role of banks' previous industry exposure," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Goetz, Martin R. & Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2016. "Does the geographic expansion of banks reduce risk?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 346-362.
    4. Matteo Benetton, 2021. "Leverage Regulation and Market Structure: A Structural Model of the U.K. Mortgage Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 2997-3053, December.
    5. Chung, Sol & Agnew, Julie & Bateman, Hazel & Eckert, Christine & Liu, Junhao & Thorp, Susan, 2024. "The impact of mortgage broker use on borrower confusion and preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 229-247.
    6. Ivan Lim & Duc Duy Nguyen & Linh Nguyen & John O.S. Wilson, 2025. "Proximity to Bank Headquarters and Branch Efficiency: Evidence from Mortgage Lending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(6), pages 1465-1508, September.
    7. Guiso, Luigi & Pozzi, Andrea & Tsoy, Anton & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Mistrulli, Paolo Emilio, 2022. "The cost of steering in financial markets: Evidence from the mortgage market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1209-1226.
    8. Martin Goetz & Luc Laeven & Ross Levine, 2014. "Does the Geographic Expansion of Bank Assets Reduce Risk?," NBER Working Papers 20758, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Schüwer, Ulrich & Gropp, Reint E. & Noth, Felix, 2016. "What drives banks' geographic expansion? The role of locally non-diversifiable risk," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145885, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Pham, Thi Hoang Anh & Doan, Ngoc Thang, 2023. "Global bank complexity and financial fragility around the world," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(1).
    11. Duijm, Patty & Schoenmaker, Dirk, 2021. "European banks straddling borders: Risky or rewarding?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    12. Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Zigan Wang, 2020. "Bank Networks and Acquisitions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5216-5241, November.
    13. Yildirim, Canan & Efthyvoulou, Georgios, 2018. "Bank value and geographic diversification: regional vs global," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 225-245.
    14. Kathy Estes, 2014. "Diversification and Community Bank Performanceduringa Financial Crisis," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 3(4), pages 01-40, October.
    15. Avramidis, Panagiotis & Cabolis, Christos & Serfes, Konstantinos, 2018. "Bank size and market value: The role of direct monitoring and delegation costs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 127-138.
    16. Billett, Matthew T. & Liu, Fangzhou & Tian, Xuan, 2025. "Information spillovers and cross monitoring between the stock market and loan market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    17. Simoens, Mathieu & Tamburrini, Fabio, 2025. "The expert’s edge? Bank lending specialization and informational advantages for credit risk assessment," Working Paper Series 3041, European Central Bank.
    18. Paolo Emilio Mistrulli & Tommaso Oliviero & Zeno Rotondi & Alberto Zazzaro, 2023. "Job Protection and Mortgage Conditions: Evidence from Italian Administrative Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(6), pages 1211-1237, December.
    19. Pham, Tho & Talavera, Oleksandr & Tsapin, Andriy, 2022. "Branch network structure, authority and lending behaviour," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(4).
    20. Grodecka-Messi, Anna & Kenny, Seán & Ögren, Anders, 2021. "Predictors of bank distress: The 1907 crisis in Sweden," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:1104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Research (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boegvuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.