UNDERGOING A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Kensington Mortgages
IN ASSOCIATION WITH DIGITAL REPORT 2020
02
KENSINGTON MORTGAGES: UNDERGOING A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
03
www.k e nsi ngt o nmo rt ga ges . co. u k
KENSINGTON MORTGAGES
VICKI HARRIS, CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER AT KENSINGTON MORTGAGES, DISCUSSES DIGITAL DISRUPTION IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY
K
Kensington Mortgages is the largest independent mortgage lender in the UK and specialises in mortgages for borrow-
ers with more complex income profiles – such as the self-employed or people with multiple sources of income – who find it difficult to get a mortgage 04
from one of the High Street lenders. Vicki Harris is the Chief Commercial Officer at Kensington Mortgages. Having joined the organisation in 2018, Harris is responsible for driving growth and innovation at the firm. Over the past few years, Harris believes her organisation has undergone not just a digital transformation but a business-wide one too. “When I joined, we took a step back and asked the question: what is the purpose of our organisation? We spent quite a lot of time understanding this and defining what makes us different - and from that, we updated our strategy and refreshed our brand and values,” she explains. “We then used that as the driving factor to kick off a range of initiatives across the business including building out our digital capabilities. A lot
05
“I THINK IT’S A REALLY EXCITING TIME FOR THE SECTOR AND WE’RE ON THE CUSP OF DISRUPTION” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages
www.k e nsi ngt o nmo rt ga ges . co. u k
KENSINGTON MORTGAGES
Kensington Mortgages Home of the Specialist Mortgage CLICK TO WATCH
|
1:56
06
“ I THINK THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY MORE GENERALLY IS ONE OF THE FEW AREAS OF RETAIL FINANCIAL SERVICES THAT HASN’T BEEN DISRUPTED YET” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages
of it was around how we think about the business, our people and how we can be more agile in our decision-making. It was far broader than just digital, although that was a key part of it.” On the digital side, Kensington Mortgages has been working very closely with SOPRA Banking Software to develop a new core platform. Unlike many of the older systems currently in use across the industry, it is built around a modular and flexible architecture that will allow the company to make changes to products, pricing and processes very rapidly. “It’s been
a massive project that has finally gone
months of bank statements. We now
live over the past few weeks. We are
use APIs a lot more to access third
now working hard to build out a range
party data. And we’re in the process
of new and exciting products and
of rebuilding our website so we can
refine our pricing approach accord-
engage more directly with customers.
ingly.,” explains Harris. “We will gather
I think the mortgage industry more
lots more information as we look to
generally is one of the few areas in
underwrite new borrowing through
retail financial services that hasn’t
things like open banking rather than
been disrupted yet but this is coming
expecting customers to provide
and we need to be ready for it.”
E X E C U T I V E P R O FILE :
Vicki Harris Title: Chief Commercial Officer
07 Industry: Financial Services
Location: London Vicki joined Kensington in April 2018 and as Chief Commercial Officer is responsible for driving strategy, growth and innovation across the Group. Prior to Kensington, Vicki was Group Head of Strategy and Marketing at Aldermore Bank, one of the original challenger banks post the 2009 financial crisis which successfully IPO’d on the London Stock Exchange in 2015. This followed 3 years as COO of Octopus Investments, one of the fastest growing and most innovative wealth management companies in the UK. She previously spent time across a variety of roles in GE Capital and 4 years as a consultant at McKinsey. www.k e nsi ngt o nmo rt ga ges . co. u k
POWERING UP YOUR PEOPLE Providing ever-evolving mortgage software solutions means your people can increase the speed, volume and accuracy of mortgage applications for the most important people of all – your customers. This means improved efficiency and increased margins for your business, both now and in the future.
Our ability to deliver game-changing agility has powered us since 1968. It’s why some of the biggest financial organisations in over 80 countries trust Sopra’s team of more than 5000 experts to help keep their competitive edge and why over 1500 Financial institutions run Sopra Banking platforms every day.
Hit the ground running Rapid deployment is essential. We provide you with a core system configured to your requirements, allowing you to run current programmes seamlessly and giving you the capability to launch new products without the need for code changes. Our solution extends into all aspects of the mortgage market, mortgage provision and processing. Sopra’s solution means you hit the ground running from day one.
Expand your end-to-end digital capability The end-to-end processing of mortgage applications takes time because of the number of elements involved. Sopra’s ‘Orchestration Layer’ pulls all of those elements into a single place, simplifying processing and reducing the time it takes to implement. In turn, this improves the application experience of your customers, regardless of what channel or device they use.
Enhance your customer experience We give you access to a range of digital assets and work collaboratively to develop new propositions to innovate across the end-to-end digital journey. Together we create unique, customised journeys for your customers and brokers. Our in house experience design consultants (CX Partners) will guide you through our process of research, prototyping and consumer testing.
Constantly innovate We are committed to innovation and iteration. We have a legacy of building strong partnerships, especially in Fintech. Yet the Fintech ecosystem is vast and often confusing. That’s why we are part of the ‘Chemistry
Find out how we recently upgraded KMC onto our new digital mortgage platform
Programme’. This is a market leading structured approach identifying the Fintechs that will add real value to our clients’ business in the short, medium and long term.
Provide dynamic digital solutions, today and tomorrow In response to evolving customer and market requirements, our product environment enables new product offerings and mortgage application journeys to be created and updated in digital timelines. Our unique branding and design system lets you build, test and roll-out new customer experiences faster than ever before.
SMARTER, FASTER PERFORMANCE STARTS HERE Our experts are available to discuss how together we can transform your customers’ mortgage experience and also arrange a demo of our latest products and solutions. So, if you want to power up your people, start talking to our people today.
KENSINGTON MORTGAGES
“ WE’RE IN THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING OUR WEBSITE SO WE CAN ENGAGE MORE DIRECTLY WITH CUSTOMERS” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages
All of Kensington’s mortgages are analysed by VECTOR, which is a proprietary and powerful analytical model that is embedded into all phases of the mortgage lifecycle. “VECTOR has a massive database spanning the last 25 years with over a million data points showing how loans have behaved in different macroeconomic environments,” says Harris. “We have an AI platform that allows us to use VECTOR to help us understand
10
Kensington Mortgages We look for ways to say YES CLICK TO WATCH
|
1:16
11 how our loans will perform over time
are the one area where it now takes
depending on different economic sce-
longer than it did before.
narios. This also gives us an edge to develop new products.”
“People used to go to their bank branch more often, so back in the 90s
Harris is well aware that mortgages
if you wanted a mortgage you went to
generally are one of the last remaining
see your branch manager, you talked
areas that are yet to be innovated. “I
them through what you needed and
saw a chart recently that showed in
they had the power to make a decision.
1990, it took a week to buy an airline
It happened quite quickly because it
ticket, two weeks to get new house
was done locally, even though it wasn’t
insurance and three weeks to get a
done digitally. However, what has hap-
car loan,” she explains. “But, all those
pened over the past 15/20 years is that
things have moved from weeks to sec-
the bank has taken away that power
onds as you do them online, whereas
from the branches, it’s all centralised
mortgages, which used to take days,
and has been digitised. You go into www.k e nsi ngt o nmo rt ga ges . co. u k
KENSINGTON MORTGAGES
some central process within the bank
years will hold for her organisation
with people that don’t understand
and the industry itself. “I think it’s a
individual circumstances and you
really exciting time for the sector
often end up with a ‘computer says
and we’re on the cusp of disruption,”
no’ approach. Taking out a mortgage
she explains. “Kensington is cur-
is a complex process, much more so
rently growing at 30% year on year
than perhaps getting a car loan. You
and we expect the growth of digital
have to value the property and try to
within the industry to only accelerate
consider whether the person involved
post-COVID. We also anticipate an
can sustain paying a mortgage for the
increasing need for specialist mort-
next 25 years.”
gage lending as people’s financial
As Kensington gears up to celebrate 12
situations become more complex.
its 25th year anniversary in December,
Coming out of COVID, there are
Harris is looking to the future and is
going to be a lot of people that were
optimistic about what the next few
on furlough or had to take a payment
Kensington Mortgages: Using data to write better mortgages CLICK TO WATCH
|
3:21
13
“ CUSTOMERS ARE DEMANDING THAT WE DO THINGS IN DIFFERENT WAYS AND IT’S TIME TO START ADDRESSING THAT” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages
holiday where it’s going to take more time to underwrite them. I think there will be a much more customer-focused approach and we have a number of new products in the pipeline to allow younger people to get on the housing ladder. Customers are demanding that we do things in different ways and it’s time to start addressing that. The future is bright.”
www.k e nsi ngt o nmo rt ga ges . co. u k
KENSINGTON MORTGAGES Ascot House Maidenhead Office Park Maidenhead SL6 3QQ
P0WERED BY
www.kensingtonmortgages.co.uk