The Intermediary – October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 44
In Profile.
Q&A
Jessica Bird speaks with Alan Cleary, interim managing
director, and Paul Noble, CEO at Chetwood Bank, about the
lender’s strategic direction amid a leadership transition
I
n September 2025, Alan Cleary took over
as interim managing director of Chetwood
Bank’s mortgages division, as the lender
makes the transition from Andrew Arwas
to a permanent successor who will join the
business in February 2026.
Cleary has over 30 years of experience, including
at BM Solutions, Precise Mortgages and OSB, as
well as a role on Chetwood’s advisory board, which
CEO Paul Noble says makes him an ideal figure to
lead the bank into its next growth phase.
The Intermediary sat down with Cleary and Noble
to understand what this means for the bank, and
importantly, the brokers and buy-to-let (BTL)
borrowers it caters for.
The plan
While Chetwood is on a continuous path of
evolution, including through the ModaMortgages
and CHL Mortgages for Intermediaries brands.
Cleary explains that “the direction of the
business is already set,” and that both through
his transitional phase and the introduction of the
permanent MD next year, there is a “strategy that
we are locked onto.”
He adds: “We are 100% broker focused, currently
in the BTL space and in bridging shortly, and we
have a bunch of other things coming down the
pipe next year and the year after.
“The person coming in is a veteran in the
specialist mortgage market, and will execute
that strategy in line with what Paul and
d have signed off.
the board
“It may look new, because we’re
at the start of this journey and
citing stuff coming along
there’s exciting
e, and we’re going to
in the future,
deploy a lott more funding into the
intermediary space, but it will be
a continuation.”
eful thought that has gone
The careful
th the transitional period and
into both
mapping out future plans should,
xplains, mean there are “no
Cleary explains,
shocks” in storee for brokers.
oble – himself celebrating his
Noble
first year with Chetwood – says he
ontinues to be “absolutely
continues
passionate about delivering on the specialist
mortgage agenda,” as well as the opportunity to
build on and cement the “strong foundations”
already established by the bank.
For Noble, both within this transitional period
and long-term, Chetwood’s ethos is “about
understanding and supporting who we’re here
to serve.”
To this end, he says: “We need to make sure we
have the right product set that ultimately suits the
end borrower, while remembering that our core
route to market is through intermediaries.
“It’s important to us that we have every touch
point that can work for intermediaries – and I
think we’ve got that now across Moda and CHL.”
Cleary adds: “I’m focused on making sure
the brokers know what we are, and that they
understand the different brands, and which to use
for which types of cases.
“I’ll also be working very closely with our
operations team to make sure the service is
excellent, making sure it’s all joined up and
balanced in order to maintain really good quality.”
Already “well established in terms of the pure
size of the business,” the long-term plan continues
to be to grow the proposition over time, and
“compete aggressively, not just on price, but
service and proposition – the whole gamut,”
according to Cleary.
The proposition
In working to cater for an incr
increasingly
diverse and complex set o
of borrowers, Noble
says: “Moda is built on the ffoundations of
automation and making things ffaster and
easier for brokers who have cases that need
quick responses and ar
are a bit simpler.”
This means semi-pro
semi-professional landlords,
first-time landlords, and small houses in
(HMOs for example.
multiple occupation (HMOs),
cater for the larger
CHL, meanwhile, caters
HMOs, landlords with big
bigger, more complex
portfolios, as well as elements such as
multi-use properties.
He adds: “We’ve got a team o
of underwriters,
in particular at CHL, who are
equipped to work out how
to lend, and handle
ALAN CLEARY
42
The Intermediary
ediary | October 2025
