Atom Near Prime: Positive Policy Changes Now in Effect

digital mortgages by atom bankAtoms’ new policy changes widen the scope for those with defaults on their credit record to access our Near Prime products. This will make them available to a much wider range of customers.

What are the changes?

  • Increasing the limit of unsatisfied defaults from £1k to £2.5k: we’ll accept applicants with unsatisfied defaults of up to £2.5k in the last two years.
  • Increasing the limit of communications/utilities unsatisfied defaults from £250 to £500: we’ll accept applicants with unsatisfied comms/utilities defaults of up to £500 in the last two years.
  • Reducing the defaults look back period from 3 years to 2 years: anything from before two years ago will not be considered.

Why are we changing our lending policy?

Those with less-than-perfect credit do not have the options they deserve in the market, and we’re confident our Near Prime range could help many of them. With this update, we’re ensuring that our products are accessible to even more people.

Need a reminder of what our Near Prime range offers?

Our Near Prime product range has been designed to help those with less-than-perfect credit achieve their dream of becoming a homeowner:

  • Range of products available: We offer up to 85% LTV products, with both purchase and remortgage options, as well as fee and no-fee products.
  • Adverse lending policy: We use specialist criteria that directly considers the likes of CCJs, defaults and missed payments.
  • No credit scoring: We check affordability and adverse limits, but we don’t factor in your customers’ actual credit score.
  • We don’t do tiered or risk-based products: You won’t be dealing with anything but our simple, transparent products.
  • Near Prime, same priority: We use the same process and team as our Prime mortgages, including AVM and other automated processes, so you can expect the same fast and efficient service and could even receive an offer the same day.
  • Up to 5.5x annual salary: As with Prime applications, in some cases we’ll accept up to 5.5x annual salary with our Near Prime mortgages.

Find out who we can lend to in full detail in our Near Prime Lending Policy.

You can place an application for one of our Near Prime products by logging onto the Portal, selecting a Near Prime product code and completing the application in the same way as any of our other mortgages.

If you’re struggling to find our products on sourcing systems, please get in touch with us to discuss your customer’s case. You can also find Near Prime product codes by downloading our PDF rate table.

If you’d like more information, contact our TBDM team or speak to your RBDM.