At a time when intermediaries are being coaxed into looking at commercial mortgages for the first time, it is hard to see into the future, to see what lies beyond the regulatory horizon for commercial mortgages. Intermediary buy-in on a large scale still has a long way to go in this market. But the template laid down for residential mortgages of offering whole-of-market before a recommendation is made and the concept of treating customers fairly (TCF) will be difficult to ignore, whether the market is regulated or not. Therefore, the habits that have been acquired in residential lending in the past two years to comply with TCF will be a feature of the growing commercial market.
However, the commercial market is a different animal from its residential cousin. While the dynamics are the same, in that a lender takes a property as security in return for funding, the type of client, a business person, and the requirement for a loan on commercial premises not on a family home, removes some of the emotion that is attached to the purchase of a principal residence.