Technology
Tech collaboration: What does it mean for mortgages?
T
echnology has changed the face of nearly every industry. For example, fintech firms like Monzo and Tide have changed the consumer-facing banking industry by digitising customer interactions in an efficient and easy way. Yet even as technology is revolutionising the way we do everything, the housing and mortgage sector stands apart in that it has only so far seen significant innovations for each stage of the conveyancing process in silo. Now, the industry is ready to ensure that this innovation is taken advantage of across the whole journey as all stakeholders stand to gain so much in terms of efficiency, customer service and costs. For that to happen, we need conveyancers and lenders alike to see the benefit of technology. As it stands, they understand and champion its importance, but with the various solutions only changing one part of the process, there is more opportunity to maximise the benefits for the industry as a whole. The evolution of technology combined with collaboration will provide huge advancements when it comes to implementing one streamlined, end to end solution.
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Optimistic attitude
Collaboration is key
Consumers in the property market are increasingly expecting a speedy, efficient service when it comes to property purchases. However, as the conveyancing process can still feel inefficient, requiring faxing, rekeying the same data multiple times and manual verification, it’s not surprising that it can be frustrating. The opportunity is there to change this, both so that the industry can improve the end customer’s experience and so that both law firms and lenders can manage the ever-increasing volume of purchase and remortgage activity efficiently.
However, while tech is key, ensuring cross industry collaboration is vital to ensure that it is not implemented in silo. With sufficient tech progress and the demand for it, all that remains is for companies and tech providers to harness collaboration to actualise these ideas.
LMS saw mortgage lending increase by nearly a third (33%) last year and, with many existing mortgages set to expire at the end of June, the market is geared to spike again. Over the second half of this year, we will see the highest volume of loans expiring in any six-month period over the last decade. Conveyancing stakeholders should aim and look forward to digitising manual processes in order to ensure they can process this high volume of activity smoothly and efficiently, and with minimal errors.
Creating these efficiencies is so simple but so powerful. Tech can be seamlessly incorporated to existing systems to give conveyancers and lenders one single source of truth. This allows them to assess how much time a case will need from the outset, helping them with capacity while also giving the consumer a more accurate estimation of their completion date to eliminate uncertainty.
Sharing documents digitally will significantly cut out errors and time spent on administration, and technology can also tackle fraud such as attempts to intercept documentation, which has clear benefits for both the end consumer and law firms.
Streamlining the solution While there is ample tech out there, too many providers are offering to automate only a single component of the journey so
