Small Firm Feel, Large Firm Results: The Stifel Approach to Mortgage Lending
At Stifel, our commitment to putting financial advisors (and their clients) first shines through in our mortgage lending operations.
Over the past 20 years, Stifel has made a number of investments that have enhanced the firm’s capabilities for clients, from intellectual capital and technology to our nationally recognized equity research.
In 2007, Stifel Financial Corp. took the unorthodox step of acquiring a bank, rather than selling out to one. Our acquisition of FirstService Bank (a small, St. Louis-based bank with $100 million in assets) enabled us to add a full range of lending capabilities to our arsenal of products and services. Subsequently renamed Stifel Bank & Trust, the bank has since grown to more than $17 billion in assets in just 10 years.
By adding a bank, Stifel was able to start offering mortgages and other loans to its clients through a referral from their trusted financial advisors, without the red tape that typically accompanies the lending process.
This “upside-down” ownership structure — i.e., the brokerage owning the bank, not vice versa — empowers Stifel’s lending professionals to place client service and satisfaction above all else. “We are doing everything within our power to meet advisors’ needs, to meet their clients’ needs, to be responsive, to be friendly, to solve problems quickly,” explains Stifel Bank & Trust CEO Chris Reichert.
Personalizing the Mortgage Lending Process
According to Stifel Bank Executive Vice Presidents Charlie Hillemann and Dave Rashet, this advisor-oriented — and, by extension, client-oriented — attitude is particularly strong in Stifel’s mortgage lending operation.
“At many major firms, a financial advisor isn’t assigned to a specific lender, so they won’t know who they’re going to get each time they pick up the phone,” says Hillemann. “At Stifel Bank, we’re not a 1-800 number. We’re a dedicated, highly experienced team of lenders who can give our advisors the peace of mind that they’re going to get the same person, the same mortgage originator, each and every time they refer a client.”
Quality lending service cannot be provided by rookies or paper-pushers in a cubicle farm call center. It requires experience, knowledge, and a passion for growing a referral-based business. The Stifel Bank lending team is made of professionals with 15-20+ years of direct lending experience. They have all developed their books of business by continually striving to exceed the expectations of their referral sources and their clients. “When it comes to growing our team, we’re very selective about finding people who truly embody Stifel’s values,’” Rashet admits. As a result, Hillemann adds, "We have built the team by proactively recruiting the strongest, most client-focused lenders in our market. Stifel advisors get to work with colleagues at their own high level of service and success.”
A Culture of Support
This fine-grained approach to mortgage lending benefits both financial advisors and their clients. Stifel’s consolidated corporate structure increases the ease of communication between producers and upper management, enabling Stifel Bank to, in Hillemann’s words, “maintain the mentality of a small bank even though we’ve become a much larger bank.” Stifel Bank & Trust is now the largest St. Louis-based bank in terms of deposits.
“Everything we do exists under one Stifel roof,” says Rashet. “It’s not delegated to multiple divisions all over the country, as is often the case in large traditional banks. Since every department — sales, operations, etc. — is here in St. Louis, things get processed much more quickly, which in this day and age is a huge value-add.”
This streamlining of the mortgage process results not only in better pricing for clients, but in stronger client-advisor and advisor-lender relationships. “A financial advisor’s biggest concern is that a lender is going to ruin the trusting relationship that they’ve painstaking cultivated with their client,” says Hillemann. “At Stifel, that simply isn’t an issue. Our advisors know that when they refer a client to one of our mortgage bankers, that client is going to receive the same level of service that they’re accustomed to receiving from their advisor.”
Ultimately, it’s Stifel’s unique culture — a culture based on prioritizing client relationships, not adhering to top-down corporate directives — that has compelled both Hillemann and Rashet to stay with the firm for ten years running. “It’s about service, it’s about pricing, and it’s about knowledge and expertise,” they conclude. “Taken together, these factors create an incredible mortgage lending experience for everyone involved.”
Interested in learning more? Visit ChooseStifel.com.