One to One: David Morris, Santander

This month, we are speaking to David Morris (pictured), head of homes at Santander UK.

How did you get into the mortgage industry?

Working in mortgages isn’t one of those childhood jobs – like being a teacher or a doctor – so, as with many reading this, I suspect, I found myself falling into this line of work across several years and various career moves.

Following a stint in the Middle East, I returned to the UK in January 2016 to run products at Coventry Building Society. While the role covered several product lines that I had familiarity with, it was the first time I had been asked to run a mortgage book. There was a huge amount to learn and it was a bit of a trial by fire, but I enjoyed it immensely.

I was there for a few years, then moved to Yorkshire Building Society, which again included a large mortgage focus. After nearly a decade immersed in the mortgage world and seeing first-hand both its crucial part in a business, as well as how deeply it can shape customers’ everyday lives, I’m proud to be leading the homes team at Santander.

What has been the biggest learning over your career?

There have been so many, but the one I come back to is the power – and importance – of people. Working with the right people in mind and focusing on doing the best by them is often the most powerful change I think an organisation can make, whether this is thinking about your customers when building products or building empowered teams that can challenge you and help you create winning strategies and drive delivery themselves. I believe that having a people-first focus is only going to become more important with the advances in artificial intelligence (AI).

You joined Santander in 2024 from Yorkshire Building Society. How has the jump between a building society and high street bank been? What are the differences and similarities?

The remarkable thing is how similar it all is. Perhaps that’s because mortgages operate in broadly the same way in all organisations. The thing I love about Santander is our reach and our ability to really make a difference in the market. Take our new proposition, My First Mortgage, offering up to 98% loan to value (LTV) for first-time buyers purchasing a house. We really wanted to create a solution that could be used across the market and that was genuinely tackling one of the biggest hurdles to homeownership – the struggle to raise a £50,000-60,000 deposit.

As the first big lender to offer higher-LTV lending, I’m confident that our size and reach make this a real game-changer, and I’m pleased to say that at the time of writing (two weeks after launch), we have offered on our first cases above 95% LTV. With innovations like this, we can start to make homeownership a reality for a group of people who thought it might never happen – it really excites me.

You are now entering your second year as head of homes. What are your key priorities and why?

My big message to the market to the team – to anyone who will listen! – is I want more of the same. I think we really showed what we were about last year. We led the market on a number of actions, such as being the first lender to move on the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) clarification of stress rates, making changes that had real, tangible benefits for buyers – unlocking up to £35,000 more in borrowing. What’s more, I think we really laid down a statement about how we are backing the broker market with our broker pledges, which we have renewed and refreshed for 2026.

The rest of this year has to continue on this theme – at a time when we’re hearing uncertainty from brokers as to ‘whose side’ lenders are on, I want them to be certain that we’re here to work in partnership. Likewise, I want us to lead the rallying cry for the first-time buyers that homeownership is more than a pipe dream, and with the right tools and advice, something that is very much in reach. I want us to really show we can innovate, lead the market and make a difference.

Where do you see the key opportunities and challenges for this year?

The great news is that the 2026 market is looking buoyant and lenders are pushing one another to innovate on products, to offer the best prices they possibly can and to improve the customer experience. This is echoed by regulators reviewing how we can unlock lending and create a market that both protects customers from arrears and negative equity, while enabling more people to benefit from the stability of homeownership. For customers and brokers, this is incredibly positive – after a volatile few years, their confidence is rightly returning with a belief that the market is on their side.

The challenge for lenders now is in keeping up. A lender that rests on its laurels and doesn’t appreciate the need to continually deliver for customers, or to work in partnership with brokers, will quickly find they lose out to the competition. On the flip side, sections of the market are naturally nervous with every loosening of affordability constraints that we may be returning to pre-2008 lending, so it’s our challenge as lenders to show that we’re continuing to act responsibly, while helping even just one more first-time buyer in the process.

Santander has been outspoken on the need for reform of the home buying and selling process to make the process more digital. In an ideal world, what would you like to see in terms of reform?

At its most basic, we need a model that gives people certainty, where they feel like they understand what is going on. The demands on buyers, particularly first-time buyers, are enormous, so we need a system that helps them manage things on their terms. There’s a lot in that statement, and one could write an essay on how to achieve all of this and what should be the first priorities for change.

For me, the key messages have to be better communication, to educate and give people more information earlier in the journey, to incentivise commitment to the purchase, and to coordinate better across the various parties to the transactions. The good news is that I think this is exactly what the government is pushing for, and I would add that the conversations I have with other stakeholders – from proptech and lenders through to conveyancing companies – feel really aligned behind this. I look forward to seeing this play out across the year.

Santander joined the FCA’s AI testing group last year. Can you talk through that a bit more? What are you aiming to get out of it and how do you think AI will transform the mortgage industry? Is it something brokers should fear?

The AI Live Testing Initiative is helping those taking part to explore how AI can improve customer engagement and streamline processes across the bank. By working with the FCA, we can review governance and risk management and ask questions around evaluation in real time.

I think there will be a place for AI in future, as brokers access it to streamline their own processes, leaving them more time to focus on their clients. Should they be worried? I honestly think no. I can’t see a time in the near future in which homebuyers happily trust an AI bot to recommend the best product for them without following this up with their own research to double check.

Santander’s Broker Barometer shows that consumers agree, with two-thirds of them saying that they couldn’t go through the home buying process without speaking to a broker, despite the rise in digital tools. I don’t see that shifting heavily anytime soon and our empathy, creativity and relationships as people are what will set us apart as professionals in the future.

One of the key things that Santander is known for are its broker pledges. Can you talk a bit more about how these came about and why you added the underwriter access pledge this year? What has the feedback been like from brokers? Are there things they are asking for?

I joined in October 2024 and off the bat said I really wanted us to lay down a marker to show we were on the side of the brokers. I also said I wanted us to be bold and not afraid to take a stand. The pledges came out of this thinking. We knew from our own research there were some areas that the market felt really strongly about and I wanted us to make a really overt commitment to the market. They’ve gone down really well – especially the ‘no dual pricing’, which has probably become more relevant over the last few years. We also have our minimum notice period of 24 hours for product withdrawals.

Another area we’ve focused heavily on is our product transfer process and making this better than ever for our brokers. Milestones from 2025 that spring to mind include introducing ERC-free overpayments in the PT window, including PT rates on sourcing systems, allowing brokers to accept PTs on behalf of their clients (something that more than 10,000 brokers have now done!).

For 2026, we wanted to go even further. We kicked around a few ideas and had quite a few contenders, but the challenge with 10-plus pledges is that no one will remember them. So we made the choice just to add one more, which was around access to underwriters – something that we know is of massive importance to brokers and just makes sense when we’re thinking of ways to make the home buying journey easier.

My goal here is simple: I want brokers to feel like Santander works with them to make a case fit, that we are known for access, pragmatism and getting deals through. That is what this is all about.

How is Santander going to set itself apart from other high street lenders?

Developments like My First Mortgage set the tone for the year as far as I’m concerned. Brokers and customers can expect more developments, more product innovation and improved processes throughout 2026 – we are certainly not a lender resting on its laurels. We’re in a great position to have access to global colleagues across group to share experiences, ideas and innovate together.

We are also staying close to campaigns we started last year on fixing the broken home buying process, working with government and industry players on this. Really, this is the year that Santander becomes the lender who makes a difference to people’s homeownership journey, whatever stage they’re at, and beyond simply providing them with a mortgage.