BPF supports 'Vision for Real Estate Finance' paper

The British Property Federation (BPF) has urged the UK property industry to acknowledge recommendations made by a cross-industry group for helping to protect financial institutions from future property market crashes.

‘A Vision for Real Estate Finance in the UK’, a paper produced by the Real Estate Finance Group and sponsored by the Investment Property Forum (IPF), has put forward seven draft recommendations.

These include the creation of a database of commercial property lenders, the setting up of an industry committee to help inform regulators and the introduction of an accredited qualification for lenders.

The Real Estate Finance Group is chaired by Nicholas Scarles, group finance director at Grosvenor.

Peter Cosmetatos, who was appointed chief executive at the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council Europe (CREFC Europe) in September, is secretariat.

Ion Fletcher, who took over from Cosmetatos as director of finance at the BPF, said: “We warmly welcome this report, agree with the need for a vision and commend the work of the Real Estate Finance Group.”

“It is vital that the [commercial property] industry demonstrates to the regulators [that] industry participants are capable of being good ‘corporate citizens’ with an interest in maintaining financial stability and sustainable growth.”