Mortgage Technology December 2021

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December 2021

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EDITORIAL

COMMENT

Publishing Director Robyn Hall Publishing Editor Ryan Fowler Ryan@mortgageintroducer.com Editor Jessica Bird Jessicab@sfintroducer.com Deputy News Editor Jake Carter Jake@mortgageintroducer.com Editorial Director Nia Williams Commercial Director Matt Bond Matt@mortgageintroducer.com Advertising Sales Executive Tolu Akinnugba Tolu@mortgageintroducer.com Advertising Sales Executive Jordan Ashford Jordan@mortgageintroducer.com Campaign Manager Esha Gossain Esha@mortgageintroducer.com Production Editor Felix Blakeston Felix@mortgageintroducer.com Head of Marketing Robyn Ashman RobynA@mortgageintroducer.com CEDAC Media Ltd Signature Tower 42 25 Old Broad Street London EC2N 1HN

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INTRODUCER

Contents

Innovate and adapt

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f the events of the past two years have taught us anything, it is that everything can change, and to expect the unexpected.

In the build up to Christmas 2019, predictions revolved around an approaching Brexit deal and the General Election results, among other normal concerns. This might seem startlingly mundane now, as within months, the picture of the year ahead was shattered.

There were many factors that kept the property and mortgage market turning – after the initial hiatus in 2020 – but the standout player has to be digitalisation and the use of technology.

From programmes like Zoom and Teams going from lesser-known to vital in the blink of an eye, to huge advancements in automated valuations, digital ID verification, and even the use of drones in some cases, this market proved its ability to adapt.

Most importantly, many who were previously reluctant also discovered that digitalisation was not the enemy, but could instead be a valuable friend.

Notwithstanding threats of further lockdown due to the Omicron variant, we are now seeing a return to something like normality – businesses are creeping back into their offices, and in-person events are popping up again.

The momentum is unlikely to slow, however, as lenders, intermediaries, and indeed their clients, have all discovered the benefits of tech.

As we enjoy this festive season and look forward to 2022, we can toast to continued innovation, hopefully waving goodbye to the pandemic, but keeping in mind the important lessons learned along the way.

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Jessica Bird

Jess_JBird

4 Feature: Embracing the future Natalie Thomas looks at how technology has become an intergral part of the mortgage market and asks what comes next 10 Interview: SmartrFit Mortgage Introducer speaks to Jodie White, mortgage transformation product owner at Legal & General, to hear about the history of SmartrFit and how it has evolved to help advisers 13 Lauren Bagley Time for advisers to reclaim market share 15 Buster Tolfree A fintech carol: past, present and future 17 Claire Rankin The importance of utilising technology 19 Neil Wyatt Countering complex cases with technology 20 Round-table: Changing with the times Jake Carter breaks down the discussion from Mortgage Introducer’s technology round-table 26 Neal Janells A time to take stock of what is on offer

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DECEMBER 2021 MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

3

FEATURE

COVER

EMBRACING THE FUTURE Natalie Thomas looks at how technology has become an intergral part of the mortgage market and asks what comes next

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n just five years, fintech has gone from being the brokers’ foe to friend.

The words ‘chatbot’ or ‘Artificial Intelligence’(AI) are no longer the dirty words they once were in the eyes of brokers and after some initial reluctance, the mortgage market is finally engaging and embracing technology.

While lockdown has accelerated this change in thinking, the sector in many ways is still in the early stages of its digital journey.

Like a pandora’s box, the possibilities open to the market are vast and ever growing, with customer expectations set to ensure lenders and brokers continue to evolve their digital offerings.

So, what is next for the market?

REWIRED THINKING One of the biggest shifts that has occurred in recent times is around the sector’s thinking towards technology.

“A few years ago the conversation centred around the threat of the so-called ‘robo advisers’, and how they were going to be taking over the industry, taking brokers’ jobs in the process,” says Nicola Firth, founder and chief executive officer of Knowledge Bank.

“This hasn’t become a reality but that’s not to say that massive strides haven’t been made in terms of digital engagement with customers,” she adds.

Indeed, rather than being fearful of technology, brokers in particular have become more attuned to the advantages it can bring and just like borrowers, brokers too are applying pressure on lenders to up their game.

“Lenders are always under pressure to improve and accelerate customer journeys to increase conversions or make efficiency savings,” says Buster Tolfree, director of mortgages at United Trust Bank.

“If your systems aren’t up to the job, brokers will

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MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2021

almost certainly have other options that are.

The restrictions forced by COVID-19 undoubtedly increased the take up of fintech in the mortgage sector.

Anything which needed an in-person visit or meeting became much more difficult during the lockdowns,” he says.

“Interestingly lots of those processes which were vital in lockdown were much better anyway, remote ID verification and document upload have taken days off the duration of a mortgage application and are definitely here to stay,” he adds.

Much criticism has been levied at the sector over its perceived slow take-up of technology over the years but Tolfree says this hasn’t necessarily been the case.

“Much of the fintech employed by switched-on mortgage lenders, brokers and other participants simply wasn’t around five years ago,” he says.

“Smart chatbots now progress several time consuming processes which previously may have needed human intervention - document chasing and uploading for example- and AI is behind much of the best Biometric ID verification software,” he adds.

David Jones, director at Click2Check, shares this view.

“Technology has turned a corner with Application Programming Interface (API) being used to connect proprietary software, enabling companies to connect solutions together giving service continuity,” he says.

“The adoption of cloud solution and the improvement of the internet versatility has opened the finance world.

Five years ago we had fixed servers with hard wired connections which took time to connect and more time to maintain. Now there are plug and play solutions to help the industry,” he explains.

With the good, comes the bad As the industry moves more into the path of fintech, it is still experimenting with what works and what doesn’t. There has also been a realisation that not all forms of fintech might be time saving - something www.mortgageintroducer.com

FEATURE

COVER which acts as a reminder to brokers and lenders not to rely too heavily on it.

“A really good chatbot will be able to answer questions easily and improve the experience,” says Firth.

“But those that are less complex can be frustrating, and even more time consuming for brokers as they battle to get the answers they need,” she adds.

“It’s well worth setting aside the time to do your research on exactly what tech is available and could assist your business. Networks and clubs have already done a lot of that work, narrowing down the options to ensure the offering is relevant to their brokers. They will also do a certain amount of due diligence on the companies to ensure compliance, cyber safety, GDPR and more,” she says.

Jones agrees that too much reliance should not be placed on technology.

“AI is banded around like the cloud was a couple of years ago with no real understanding of what that means. Using AI to understand the question and help the adviser to give the right decision will turn the industry upside down,” he says.

“Nevertheless, being mindful that it still needs the experience of the industry to make sure the information coded to create the AI in the first place comes from the industry, otherwise it will take the adviser down the wrong path. Chatbox can get you to the point of understanding the clients’ needs with the right input but proper AI will give you the results you are looking for,” he advises.

Jason Berry, group sales and marketing director at Crystal Specialist Finance, reveals that its recent Thrive survey found that 18% of brokers wanted to engage with lenders and distributors via chatbots.

“This type of functionality is a must for those who are genuinely committed to their audience,” he says.

But he adds; “Ensuring the chatbots can receive information effectively then respond with immediacy is crucial otherwise user confidence will be lost. Separately, AI and machine learning should deliver operational benefits to ensure patterns of information and big data are best understood,” he adds.

The increased use of fintech in the sector is also something that can help combat cybercrime.

“The benefits of electronic verification go beyond just convenience for the end-user and the broker. It is also a much more effective method for preventing money laundering and mortgage fraud,” says John Dobson, chief executive officer of SmartSearch.

“Sadly, the increasing prevalence of technology is not just restricted to law abiding citizens. With billions of pounds on the line, those looking to launder money and commit fraud are now using the most sophisticated methods possible to create fake documents,” Dobson says.

“These documents are virtually undistinguishable from the real thing and make a broker’s job of spotting www.mortgageintroducer.com

the fakes virtually impossible,” he explains.

He adds however; “Electronic verification negates the need to use documents as it will analyse the credit data, combine this with electoral roll information and other reliable public sources, and build a unique ‘composite digital identity’ that is virtually impossible to fake.”

Tolfree highlights research from technology company Mimecast, which shows during the pandemic in 2020, cybercrime rose by 64%. It also estimates that in the first half of 2021 people and firms lost £1.3bn as a result.

“This is nearly treble the same period in 2018,” says Tolfree. “Any firm with a digital process of any kind can be targeted by cybercrime and if financial services firms aren’t investing in, and taking cybersecurity seriously, then disaster beckons,” he warns.

STILL MORE TO BE DONE While the consensus is that lockdown has sped up the industry’s adoption of technology, this has also perhaps led to the false impression that the industry is ahead of the game.

“I think it’s been a slow start because of the pandemic,” says Jones.

“Yes, Zoom and Teams have been the back-bone of the communication over the last 18 months and working remotely effectively has given everyone a boost to new ideas to help the process,” he says.

But he goes on to say: “The industry welcomes technology sometimes from afar - particularly lenders.

Tech is starting to be embraced and spoken about but companies are not doing enough to make it a default.

They still allow old processes to be used because they know they work and are not giving the technology the chance to shine.”

Berry also believes the mortgage market is yet to see the huge efficiency gains that it should have seen by now.

“Whilst Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) and improved links to credit reference agencies and Land Registry are examples of enhancements which are here to stay, the overall enquiry to completion journey remains hampered with rekeying of data and duplication of information still far too evident,” he says.

Firth believes there are still pockets of the broker market which are yet to fully engage with technology.

The main barriers for adoption are cost and resource, she says, for both lenders and brokers.

She believes tech firms could do more in terms of collaboration to assist both brokers and lenders with adoption.

“There is still a large portion of the broker market yet to adopt new technologies into their businesses,” she claims.

“As lenders continue to change criteria at a rapid pace, this will definitely become more and more of an issue for brokers not using the tools available.

“Those who don’t adopt the latest tech will not only not be able to write the same levels of business as their → DECEMBER 2021 MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

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FEATURE

COVER

Fintech tools don’t need to replace the human touch Maria Harris director, Digital Cat Consultancy

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t feels like a lot has happened in five years - it’s almost five years to the day since Digital Mortgages

by Atom bank went live and we saw neobanks such as Starling, Monzo and Tandem launch. Since then we’ve seen a bit of an explosion in fintech and digital products which I think have been driven by three things; the convergence of cloud first and integration tools becoming easily accessible, the various sandbox environments that were created to support innovation, and changes in customer behaviour.

2016 saw a big jump in smartphone functionality and wearables becoming mainstream so things like mobile payments became the new norm and opened up a whole new market for fintechs to move into and disrupt.

Where firms use the right fintech and integrate it well, you don’t really notice the technology. Tools such as chatbots which can give your customer a quick, easy way to ask a simple question on the go or connected services like machine learning on open banking which categorise transactions and highlight focus areas are great ways to get tech to do the heavy lifting and often boring admin based tasks. These types of fintech tools should free up our time to focus on the stuff we’re good at - building relationships, delving in to the dreams and aspirations of our customers, or dealing with the trickier problems that need creative solutions.

We do need to be mindful that we don’t try to replace the human touch though. Mortgages and finance more broadly, are emotive, risk based, and high touch transactions so finding the right balance is essential.

My frustration with the lack of progress to improve the customer

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experience in mortgages has been well documented. I find it baffling that we have the tools and the capability to connect the different industry players and share data in a way that would transform the process but we just can’t seem to corral ourselves in the right way to collaborate.

So much so, that I agreed to chair a Technology Sub Committee for the Home Buying & Selling Group to help solve the problem. We have a group of government, industry, and software provider representatives who have been working together since July to find a way to solve the data challenges and create a framework that allows interoperability. I’m feeling optimistic that we’re on the cusp of a new technology and data led era for mortgages. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport have issued a trust framework for Digital Identity which is due to go into pilot soon, we’re working on upfront and authenticated data for property transactions, real life property purchase cases are being transacted on distributed ledger, and Coadjute recently announced they’ve developed a Crypto Coin that will change how we do mortgage completions. It’s hugely exciting to think how much we can achieve in the next five years and all the positive impact we can deliver for brokers, lenders but especially customers.

A lot of the time, fintech or new technology ideas tend to come from startups, spin offs, or from people outside of our industry so there can be a tendency to focus on the higher volume, mainstream, or mass markets first. I guess that’s natural when firms still have to prove return on equity or achieve scale, but the pace of change and adoption gets quicker with every cycle of tech we go through. I read a great stat in Forbes that said 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years, so the gap between first mover and fast follower feels like it’s getting shorter every day.

MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2021

counterparts, but also the customer experience may be less effective, as consumers now expect to engage digitally,” she observes.

Indeed, it will be the younger generations that have grown up in a digital world, who will help drive any future change.

“I think customer expectation has driven change, due to their experience of dealing with businesses,” says Clare Beardmore, head of transformation and operations at Legal & General Mortgage Club.

“A customer doesn’t expect to have to apply manually, send in payslips and have to wait days to hear back, for example.

“Covid has accelerated the pace of change because we had to do more online. The market has had to move on, with more integrations between lenders, brokers, sourcing.

“This change is here to stay. It won’t replace the adviser, but it will make them super-efficient with quicker response times to give the right advice for first time applications, for example,” she believes In turn, new entrants and young blood in the industry will also play a role.

“The arrival of younger, tech savvy brokers will provide further momentum for the growth of technology in our industry,” says Miranda Khadr, chief executive officer and founder of Pitch for Finance.

“We have more lenders, more brokerages and more products than ever. Research and development is a key part of ensuring the best customer outcomes. There are tools that now exist to improve the user experience of finding lenders, finding contractors, developing properties and judging project viability,” she says.

“With so many different entrants into our sector, technology is coming through at a greater pace.

Greater innovation, greater ease, bringing with it greater possibilities. I think this trend will increase with every year that passes until we have caught up with sectors where technology has been deployed for far longer,” she states.

Tolfree believes the industry should be commended for its efforts so far.

“The mortgage industry by virtue of its scale has always tended to lead digital innovation and enhancements and I see this continuing,” he says. “At present you can see this through the knitting together of the likes of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), credit and customer profile data, open banking, biometric ID and sharing of data across communication platforms,” he explains.

Embracing technology has also been easier and cheaper for new entrants.

“It has been a lot easier for new entrants to encompass some of the innovation as they haven’t had the legacy infrastructures to integrate some of the fintech solutions that established players have to deal with,” says Richard Pike, sales and marketing www.mortgageintroducer.com

FEATURE

COVER director at Phoebus Software. “Integration is often costly and can affect business cases for investing in some solutions,” he says. “That said, there is definitely a real desire for the mortgage industry to encompass as many solutions as possible. Everyone is looking at what is out there and what unique selling points they can drive through using fintech in varying parts of the mortgage process,” he adds.

EXCITING TIMES AHEAD Unlike the sentiment in the market five years ago, there is every reason for brokers to look to the future with optimism.

“Arguably the amount of data we have as an industry should drive positive change,” says Beardmore.

“In the next one to two years we’ll start to see same day offers driven by integrations like open banking, valuation, ID verification; coupled with bespoke pricing of products driven by access to all the data that’s available,” she says.

She goes on to say: “Customer Relationship Management (CRM) will be key to all of this. Moreover, in the next five years other parts of the journey will need to innovate to keep pace - conveyancing for example. The core value of advice will remain and as inefficiency is removed, it will free up more time for advice and further innovation for both broker and lender,” she forecasts.

Tolfree believes the next five years will see the mortgage process become even quicker.

“Things like government backed ID verification schemes are on the horizon and the Land Registry is slowly introducing greater digitisation in the conveyancing process,” he says.

“These sorts of advances will help to speed up the application and admin process which is great news for all parties in an industry where speed is a huge contributor to conversion,” he notes.

The residential market has already been one of the first sub-sections of the mortgage market to benefit from fintech, and this could continue.

“It is easier to build systems that can manage volume,” says Khadr.

“These often suit standard products and standard processes more than complex and individual circumstances. That does not mean we can’t create technology that doesn’t allow for this.

“What it does mean is that technology needs to be more flexible and fluid than the standardised products that exist in the buy-to-let sector. The technology has to fit the product and fit it well; with as much thought and perspective from its ultimate users,” she says.

Firth believes it is inevitable that fintech will focus on the residential market due to its size, but says: “I also think that the gains made there will be replicated across other sectors. As the specialist market grows and the lines blur, systems will then crossover.”

“There are already some excellent developments www.mortgageintroducer.com

in the specialist sector. Those involved in these areas will continue to develop innovations, and perhaps alongside innovations crossing over from the residential arena, there will also be a transfer the other way,” she suggests.

Beardmore also believes that while the average remortgage case might lend itself more to a more technology-led approach, more specialist cases will also benefit.

“The average remortgage underpinned by automated underwriting should be a very quick and easy transaction with lender, broker and end customer all reaping the benefit,” she says. →

Technology is streamlining the remortgaging process Richard Hayes chief executive officer and co-founder, Mojo Mortgages

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echnology has played a critical role in the mortgage market over the past few years and particularly over the past 18 months of the pandemic where traditional face to face mortgage advice between a broker and customer has been pretty much non-existent.

The core benefits of bringing more technology into the mortgage space are around speed, convenience and transparency - both for customers and lenders. In today’s property market, which is as competitive as it ever has been, buyers and sellers need to be in a position to complete a sale as quickly as possible to secure a deal and fintech plays a critical role in this.

Until recently, the mortgage application process has still been heavily reliant on heavy admin, wet signatures and vast amounts of physical documentation, which can be overwhelming and confusing to some customers.

Bringing the bulk of this online has allowed brokers to streamline the process and be able to provide live support to applicants.

Other benefits include access to more live data for customers and brokers on the latest products and deals available

from lenders. No longer are mortgages hidden behind any smoke and mirrors.

Today, prospective buyers can access live data and rates that previously would have been a pipedream.

However, while technology is able to streamline the application process, that’s not to say there is no longer the need for human intervention. Every single mortgage application is different with so many different circumstances and factors influencing which deal is right for them and while an algorithm can help point an advisor in the right direction for a product it’s integral this is fully vetted by an advisor to understand its full implications for a client.

Artificial Intelligence and chatbots have also come a long way over the past couple of years and can also provide effective signposting to those early on in the application process, however it’s integral this is accompanied by real life human experts. I can’t ever see this side of the industry ever fully going away.

Given the need for confidence amongst customers when using fintech – particularly when dealing with one of the biggest purchases of your life such as a mortgage – technology is likely to play an increasing role during the remortgage stage. Once they’ve gone through the process, these customers tend to be more confident and can self-service a remortgage if they are certain they’re getting a good deal.

DECEMBER 2021 MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

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FEATURE

COVER “For more specialist areas, tech can really support the research stage, for example using automated knowledge to find a short list of lenders and integrations to speed up credit score or IDV. “This gives an adviser more time to focus on the customer’s unique circumstances and find them a mortgage that they might not have found with a manual search. CRM is key to this customer led journey with good integrations meaning less time rekeying to free-up more time for advising.

“And it will help advisers stay in touch with customers throughout their initial product period which will lead to better consumer outcomes,” she adds.

Pike also sees no reason why the benefits that fintech can drive will not apply across all lending products.

“If I were a BTL borrower with multiple properties, I’d probably look at my accounts more regularly than a prime residential borrower,” he says.

He however believes it will not be a case of one size fits all.

“New technology is launched all the time, and it will be down to the efficiencies it drives and the cost point to implement to see whether it will be successful. In a lot of cases, it will also be down to scale so a small broker who is very hands on with a small number of clients probably won’t need the automation that would benefit a major network,” he explains.

He adds: “Fundamentally, the demographics of borrowers will dictate the service you need to provide moving forward and will need to encompass the tech they want to use to communicate and service their accounts.”

Whatever the next five years have in store for the market, Jones believes the human touch will still be required.

“If you can sieve through the basics requirements using technology to narrow down decisions quickly and identify aspects by remembering what has happened by analysing data, the process can be done quickly and efficiently,” he says.

“There is only so much you can do because it’s still a people’s industry where interaction is required,” he asserts.

Berry also believes any digital developments will only aid the broker community.

“Recent research suggests the global fintech lending market was £450bn in 2020 and forecasters predict this will rise tenfold by 2030 to £4,500bn so there will be huge growth,” he predicts.

“Here in the UK we should feel confident that the intermediary share of annual completions will remain 80% plus, so consumers will very much continue to seek advice.

“This means fintech companies operating in the UK lending space should adapt their models so big data, technology and AI help deliver processes which showcase the intermediary,” he recommends.

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MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

DECEMBER 2021

Automation is key to a smoother mortgage process Alan Fitzpatrick vice president of lending operations, Habito

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021 will be remembered as a tumultuous year for the mortgage industry. We’ve faced the onslaught of multiple Stamp Duty holiday taperings, the summer stagnation of property listings, the seemingly unstoppable march of average house-prices, and now - by the Bank of England’s own admission - the inevitability of interest-rate rises. Not to mention The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s rebrand to the ‘Department for Levelling Up’. It’s been a wild twelve months. All these external, macroeconomic forces could have caused the derailment of many mortgage firm’s digitisation plans, but I don’t think it has.

We’ve seen new entrants; Sprive - an app to help make mortgage overpayments, and Generation Home - a first-time buyer specific lender. We’ve seen buy-outs - Trussle

by Better, Mojo by USwitch, Fleet by Starling Bank, as well as established fintechs like MoneyBox, throw their hat into the mortgage-advice ring. At long last, we’ve seen the launch of long-term, fixed-rate products from lenders outside the world of traditional banks, led by Habito, with more to come from Kensington, Perenna and Rothesay.

So, what happens from here? Our bet is that these 2021 ripples will be making some large waves by 2026.

Frankly, there isn’t a future for the mortgage market without fintech. In five years’ time, it will be the market.

Let me paint a picture of life by then: New lender relationships: Income verification, with HMRC APIs and open finance APIs added with search algorithms, unlock huge value to all our financial lives. Now, lenders with

life-long customer relationships offer linked, dynamic financial products to mortgage holders - shifting away from the idea of a mortgage as a debt to be repaid, to the equity in a home belonging to the customer and being instantly accessible.

New (clean) products: Machine learning has improved a lender’s product set. More bespoke mortgage products tackle real customer needs and underserved customer segments.

Products are now carbon-neutral through a combination of offsetting, lender’s direct investment in the improvement of housing stock and their investment in frontier climate tech.

New home-buying experiences: Third parties like the Land Registry and local searches are integrated into the rest of the market’s services, as soon as they become digitally available. Estate agents offer a fully digital negotiation and exchange experience through new mechanisms for escrow, for making and negotiating offers and for entering into reservation agreements. There’s a huge evolution of efficiency around the legislation and commercial practice around home buying.

Truly, the world of home financing will be unrecognisable; mortgages will be accessible, buying a home will be efficient and people will be incentivised to live more sustainably.

The mortgage itself will not constrain people’s freedom and instead, sit at the heart of their financial lives as an enabler for their futures. We’ll have radically better services and a transparent market.

Th e co nt i n u e d t a i l w i n d s of digitisation are fast making online players the de-facto way to get a mortgage in the UK. Habito only celebrated its fifth birthday last year; we hope to be 10 in 2026. By then, the market will have leaped into an era of technological delivery, tailored to consumers. The next five years will make for more wild watches.

www.mortgageintroducer.com

Lo

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SPOTLIGHT

SMARTRFIT

SMARTRFIT, O N Mortgage Introducer speaks to Jodie White, mortgage transformation product owner at Legal & General, to hear about the history of SmartrFit and how it has evolved to help advisers

How did SmartrFit come to be and what was Legal & General hoping to achieve with the tool?

Back in 2018 we sat down as a team and looked at the total number of calls the Club was receiving from advisers each year in relation to their cases. It was north of 100,000 and this was only going up and up.

We needed a way to not only manage this effectively but also find a solution that helped advisers access the information they needed more quickly and easily.

There was an opportunity to improve the service we were offering, while also playing a wider role in helping to put great technology in the hands of advisers.

With that in mind, we started on the journey to creating our SmartrCriteria service, which helps advisers understand which mortgage lenders will consider their clients based on their criteria. The tool quickly grew in popularity and the feedback we received from our network was overwhelmingly positive: those that used the tool could match clients with appropriate lenders with greater accuracy and speed.

We knew this was just the start of the tech journey at Legal & General Mortgage Club and we then began working on a new service – SmartrFit. Building on the same great platform and tech capabilities, we began developing a tool that could do the same great criteria searches, but also run intuitive affordability checks. Early results showed that a third of affordability searches through the system were failing on basic criteria, so we could see there was a clear need for this combined approach.

We’re now approaching 150,000 searches since we launched, and our ongoing updates and improvements

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MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2021

mean that advisers have access to the widest possible range of mortgage lenders, both for their residential and buy-to-let cases. As mentioned, the core aim was to improve the day-to-day for advisers and because SmartrFit has been designed by Legal & General from the very start, we can quickly make changes to it based on adviser feedback. This feedback loop has been key to the success of SmartrFit as we can implement the features that advisers actually want, rather than what we think they want.

How has SmartrFit evolved since its launch?

We’re constantly making improvements to SmartrFit in line with the feedback that advisers give us, from adding additional fields into our easy to use form to saving search results for longer.. We’ve also been busy working closely with lenders making sure their criteria, affordability and product information is both on SmartrFit and kept up to date. Since we launched a year ago, we’ve added numerous lenders, giving advisers today access to over 40 lenders, representing well in excess of 90% of our lending and it will continue to grow.

Another significant step forward in our first year was the launch of buy-to-let, which includes top slicing to provide a unique view of the market. We know that these cases can often be more intricate and take advisers longer to place, so giving them the power to search for results using SmartrFit, safe in the knowledge that any unsuitable results will not be shown to them, has been a big help to our network.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the price, SmartrFit is still free to use and will remain so. www.mortgageintroducer.com

SPOTLIGHT

SMARTRFIT

O NE YEAR ON What’s next for SmartrFit?

Jodie White

After just one year, we’ve already garnered the attention of over 5,000 advisers who now turn to SmartrFit to support their everyday operations. However, this is just the start.

With our technology now in place, we’re looking for ways to bring even greater functionality to the advice community. For instance, we recently integrated our intuitive affordability calculator into the website of broker My Simple Mortgage, allowing visitors of its website to quickly understand what a mortgage provider

“Since we launched a year ago, we’ve added numerous lenders, giving advisers today access to over 40 lenders, representing well in excess of 90% of our lending and it will continue to grow” is likely to lend them. The feedback we’ve received from the firm is overwhelmingly positive; the tool has improved the quality of its inbound leads, reduced the time staff spend on keying in client information, and given customers instant insights into their mortgage journey.

Other adviser websites now have this functionality and there is now a long queue to add this simple plug in.

SmartrFit also now provides product information alongside affordability results. Our focus now will be on adding all of our lenders onto the tool and creating an exciting user journey to source criteria, affordability and product all in one.

As we enter 2022, we’ll be looking to bring this technology to other advice firms, and even some lenders. For advisers using SmartrFit, however, the same great service will remain.

SmartrFit will continue to be free to use for any adviser with a Legal & General agency number (whether they are a member of the Club or not) and we’ll continue to make improvements to the service as we go. www.mortgageintroducer.com

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REVIEW

GENERAL INSURANCE

Time for advisers to reclaim market share CharlesBagley Lauren McDowell chief partnership managing directorand – specialist mortgages, marketing officer, HTB Uinsure

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022 will be a big year in the advisory sector for numerous reasons. It will be one of the biggest years for remortgages ever recorded, with almost £40bn worth expiring in January alone, and new FCA regulations on GI pricing practices come into force meaning price walking will be banned.

Such a large volume of expiring mortgages presents opportunity for obvious reason, and when you consider many of these remortgaging customers will be paying over the odds for their current home insurance policy, in the likely situation they have been subject to price walking, it’s easy to see why 2022 could be the year for advisers to truly reclaim their market share once lost to price comparison sites.

The advisory sector itself will become much more competitively positioned on price as a direct result of the new regulations. Not only that, but Advisers are now also able to offer a quicker, easier and more streamlined insurance application than price comparison websites as well being able to more effectively advise on products that add value and those that don’t.

This means there is not only great opportunity in the short term for the scores of customers remortgaging, but advancements in technology in the intermediary space can be used to help secure the long-term futures of advisory firms, too.

CUSTOMER ADOPTION OF PCWS

PCWs took huge chunks of market share from Advisers very quickly following their inception in the late 1990s and they now dominate the www.mortgageintroducer.com

market. They became symbols of efficiency, and an example of how technology can be used to find the “best” price for insurance. It was simply unheard of that you could get numerous quotes from different businesses by filling out one form. But what was innovative and more efficient then, is now viewed as long and laborious.

In order to meet the underwriting requirements of all of the dozens of insurers who are providing a quote, the questionnaire home owners need to answer involves anything upwards of 50 questions in a longwinded exam for the consumer.

INNOVATION IN THE SECTOR

Innovation has been prevalent in the intermediary space and, as a result, Advisers have the advantage when it comes to being able to get the best price quickly and conveniently from a range of providers.

Through our platform, for example, you can get a quote from a wideranging panel of the UK’s leading insurers by answering just three questions (name, date of birth and postcode), with a full application taking less than a minute. A far cry from lengthy exams that consumers are faced with should they opt for PCWs. The ace cards of convenience and speed are therefore right back with the Adviser and the opportunities that both mortgage cessation and new regulation bring means the intermediary sector has all the tools it needs to be able to reclaim market share as we head into 2022.

In addition to the huge short-term opportunities, we’re presented with, there is also the chance to capitalise on the innovation we have made as a sector to help change the way future generations purchase insurance. The next generation of first-time buyers are the most tech-savvy of the lot and

are very happy to spend their money with disruptors who offer easy-to-use platforms.

To protect against future losses in market share, just as the opportunity to reclaim from PCWs has hit us, intermediary firms must adopt the technology available to them. That means not only offering tech solutions to a more digitally savvy, Gen-Z and late-millennial audience, but tech solutions that deliver greater value.

TIME TO INTEGRATE

Advisers already have a huge head start on PCWs on being able to do this as they know how their client is progressing in their mortgage journey.

Holding data such as, ‘mortgage offer received’ or ‘exchange date’ indicates the exact timing of when home insurance is needed. This data is gold dust, yet today we estimate that c.675,000 advised mortgage clients still go outside of the intermediary industry to buy their insurance.

The problem with neglecting general insurance and allowing so many potential customers to end up on price comparison websites means advisory firms are essentially feeding other businesses with a lead flow that have an intention to cross sell into more core product areas, such as mortgages and protection, which is a major reason why market share has been lost across the wider space. Fortunately, when speaking to Principals and seeing how our partners are operating, we know that the tide is turning on this issue.

In 2022, we’ll see more and more firms using integrated technology that help Advisers properly take advantage of the ‘gold dust’ knowledge they own and with it, insurance will seamlessly integrate into mortgage journeys, so the product is offered at exactly the right time.

And so, looking to next year, now is the time to make the forwardthinking choices on the digital tools you’re going to use to truly seize the opportunity that lies ahead. From an insurance perspective, it is no longer time consuming and stressful and can instead exceed the expectations of existing and prospective clients, helping to reclaim market share.

DECEMBER 2021 MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

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REVIEW

FINTECH

A fintech carol: past, present and future Charles McDowell Buster Tolfree managing director – specialistofmortgages, director mortgages, HTB Trust Bank United

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apologise now for stealing from Dickens’ classic to write a piece on mortgage fintech, but hey, it’s been a very long year and it’s Christmas!

So, channelling Scrooge I’ll start with the ghost of fintech past.

Five years is a long time in technology and the use of fintech in the mortgage industry has moved on seismically since UTB first entered the market in 2016. Back then having an online portal was seen as forward thinking, now many lenders, brokers and customers are routinely using apps to progress mortgage applications and smart chat bots or digitally automated processes are doing the repetitive tasks previously carried out by bored humans who wanted to do so much more with their lives than chase bank statements.

Lenders are increasingly under pressure to keep up with the techno Joneses and whilst not all fintech is good fintech, where those have successfully led with improved systems and enhancements to simplify and accelerate the customer journey or improve conversion, others have, or will soon follow. Because frankly, they don’t really have a choice.

FINTECH PRESENT

The past five years have seen the introduction of far more advanced chat bots and the greater proliferation of AI in processes or customer interaction.

OCR (optical character recognition) is now the new buzzword in many organisations, and things like Biometric ID verification that seemed cutting edge just a couple of years ago, now just seems part of the landscape. And it isn’t going to slow down, according www.mortgageintroducer.com

to the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CTFE) 80% of all spend in fintech since 2012… has been in the last five years!

The mortgage industry by virtue of its scale will always be towards the top of the list in terms of leading digital enhancements in financial services. You can see this through the knitting together of the likes of OCR, Credit and Customer profile data, Open Banking, Biometric ID and sharing of data across communication platforms. Whilst transaction numbers in the last year or so have never been higher (thanks in part to the Stamp Duty incentive and the hangover from COVID-19 lockdowns), and some lenders service has really slipped as a result, can you imagine how bad things would have been if we didn’t have the digital application processes we now do!? Now, if we could all just accept that humans are essential in the advice process, and stop worrying about robo-advice being anything more than a computer intelligently filling out a form, customers, lenders and brokers will all be better off (and some PE firms will have healthier bottom lines!)

Whatever the scenario, digital solutions to improve manual or old school processes should, at their heart, seek to benefit the end consumer.

Usually this would be through improving their journey or improving interactions between other parties in the supply chain. Typically, they result in faster, more efficient ways of exchanging information, in many cases data, between those parties. As we all know, in the mortgage market but especially for Remortgages and Second Charges, speed is a critical success factor. The longer a case takes to progress, the more chance there is of it falling off. If a piece of clever tech can take a few days off the average processing time, conversions will benefit as well as customers. However,

in my experience, for a digital solution to be successful three key things usually happen; 1 – A significant amount of planning (and then some more) 2 – More user acceptance testing than you thought 3 – Unexpected extra 0s on the £ invoice figure!

If you’re setting out on your own fintech journey, prepare for all of these and ignore them at your peril!

FINTECH FUTURE

What else lies in store over say the next five years? I see the opportunity for greater market standardisation, and therefore adoption. Things like government backed ID verification schemes are on the horizon, the Land Registry is slowly introducing greater digitisation in the conveyancing process (not quite blockchain but it is getting there). I also think we will see some consolidation or perhaps even the fall of some mid-tier fintech firms, as the market becomes more competitive, and investors seek to either see returns or cut their losses. Fintech is no different to many industries, there are lots of people and companies with great ideas, but not all of them will succeed; if it was easy every idiot would do it!

Some firms may look to serve more niche markets such as bridging or development finance and they undoubtedly present opportunities for greater digitalisation leading to service enhancements and efficiencies.

But with the size of the prize being considerably less than cracking the higher volume mortgage market, perhaps the winners will be those companies which can adapt their offering to suit other sectors, rather than reinventing it.

By Christmas morning, Scrooge has seen the error of his ways and decides from that day forth to buy Bob Cratchit a turkey and generally be a nicer bloke. In my version of the tale, all technophobes will rush back to work on January 4, convene a new fintech working group and join the technology revolution. It may not be a classic ending, but it could possibly be a very successful start.

DECEMBER 2021

MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

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REVIEW

APIS

The importance of utilising technology Charles Claire Rankin McDowell director of director managing strategy –and specialist digital transformation, mortgages, HTB Shawbrook Bank

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ew technology has very quickly transitioned from being a nice-to-have to an absolute necessity for many, if not all, businesses.

We’ve known for some time that companies must keep up with the latest tech, and increase the breadth and scope of their digital capability just to stay on par with their competitors, let alone pull ahead. But with this constant competition comes the need for constant innovation, developing new technology that benefits both businesses and their clients.

“Developing online hubs or ‘portals’ has been key to enabling a better customer experience. Providing a centralised platform and useful tools has allowed our broker panel to work much more efficiently” One of the biggest benefits of technological development has been the ability to accelerate the streamlining of processes.

At Shawbrook, we are always seeking ways to make our customer experience more efficient and seamless, and ultimately less time consuming.

In recent months we’ve been able to re-engineer and overhaul previous processes and user experience to remove unnecessary steps from the journey and ensure that everything is much more user-friendly.

From a platform perspective, www.mortgageintroducer.com

integrating various third parties such as Companies House and Hometrack to pre-populate information in the application process is a good example of this, as it means we can validate and verify important information quickly and remove the need for unnecessary, and sometimes excessive documentation. This allows our customers to go through a frictionless journey in a shorter amount of time.

These sophisticated data insights provide our underwriters with all the information they need at their fingertips, allowing them to deliver a faster and better service. Critically, it also frees them up to focus on the more complex requirements that require human involvement and communication.

Developing online hubs or ‘portals’ has been key to enabling a better customer experience. Providing a centralised platform and useful tools has allowed our broker panel to work much more efficiently and therefore drastically reduce processing times for their clients.

Last year we launched ‘MyShawbrook Portal’– the first of its kind in the specialist market, allowing existing Buy-to-Let and Commercial Investment customers, or their broker, nearing the end of their mortgage term to submit a product switch application in a matter of minutes.

Then in September this year, we unveiled our innovative ‘MyShawbrook Buy-to-Let’ portal, which supports non-portfolio to specialist cases.

Offering instant indicative mortgage offers including automatic property valuations where applicable, the new digital solution allows us to provide quicker, more consistent, and more reliable credit decisions to customers, based on actual valuation data and sophisticated insights via API technology.

Critically, our broker partners have

been at the heart of the design process for each of these portals, ensuring every feature is there to serve their clients’ needs and improve the experience with Shawbrook.

The MyShawbrook technology has transformed the application process. Recently – with broker Watts Commercial Finance - Shawbrook was able to provide formal mortgage offers to two customers within just three working hours of receiving the applications. Both cases, in which speed was critical, received instant indicative mortgage offers followed by successful automatic property valuations – two key benefits of the new application journey.

Upon receiving the full applications, the formal mortgage offers were issued in three working hours and the customers then made use of Shawbrook’s e-Signature technology, allowing them to quickly e-sign and return their offers within 15 minutes of receiving them, speeding up the process even further.

Investing in technology that makes the lives of our brokers and customers easier, is a key priority for us and will remain so in 2022 and beyond.

We have plans to continuously evolve our MyShawbrook offering, as well a range of other digital platforms across the Bank - led by the insight of our brokers and customers. Not only will we be investing in the latest technological innovations, but we’ll be ensuring they are implemented in a way that further improves the Shawbrook experience.

This means a focus on design within our portals to make them intuitive to use and simple to understand, with the aim of making the process as seamless and pain-free as possible. To do this we won’t only be investing in the technology, but also the people with the expertise to bring it to life for users.

No matter how advanced technology becomes, our people, expertise and ability to deal with complex requirements, will always be what makes us a specialist, and we will continue to aim for the perfect balance – utilising advanced technology that enables our teams to do the best job possible for the people we serve.

DECEMBER 2021 MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

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REVIEW

MORTGAGE SOURCING

Counter complex cases with technology Charles McDowell Neil Wyatt managing director – specialist sales and mortgages, marketing director, HTB Mortgage Brain

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one are the days of the ‘vanilla’ mortgage case, especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Now a client’s circumstances can change quickly, posing additional timeconsuming challenges for advisers.

The need to cross-check criteria and affordability with products available can mean endless calls to lenders’ BDMs and helpdesks for accurate information. And, as there were over 4.2 million people self-employed in the UK in the second quarter of 2021 alone, coupled with 1.6 million employees still on furlough in July this year, cases don’t appear to be becoming less complex any time soon.

The elongated research process can mean customer expectations of service are not being met.

A McKinsey survey showed customers have four critical satisfaction dimensions: Reassurance, transparency, simplicity, and speed. These should be met during a customer’s mortgage journey. Today’s customers, across a range of ages, embrace technology for efficiency and expect similar from businesses. They want to be able to quickly connect with an intermediary for advice, how and when they want.

With the currently buoyant housing market, customers want to move quickly and can easily become frustrated and dissatisfied with their experience with an adviser if they believe there are unnecessary delays in their search for the perfect mortgage.

THE NEED FOR SPEED

The pandemic necessitated a move to adopt certain aspects of technology www.mortgageintroducer.com

such as Zoom and Teams to enable advisers to continue holding meetings with clients during lockdowns. This was a catalyst for advisers to adopt digitalisation elsewhere within their businesses too.

Intermediaries are now recognising that technology can improve their efficiency in different areas: Communication – A good customer relationship management (CRM) system offers instant access to the most accurate client data, outlining their preferred method of contact for a more meaningful relationship.

Mobile technology – flexible, hybrid, or remote working and always-on cloud solutions are making advisers more efficient by breaking the shackles of the 9-5 desk job. They can contact customers 24/7 if necessary, and from wherever they need to be.

Re-using customer data – manually entering customer data is a timeconsuming process with the risk of errors. But technology that re-uses data to minimise this exists today, providing time savings and increasing accuracy.

And the information can be submitted by the customer themselves using systems with a client portal to further minimising the likelihood of errors whilst allowing customers to benefit from being able to provide details at their convenience.

Customer nurturing – harnessing the power of data and analytics makes it easier to target and personalise marketing, enabling advisers to share the right message at the right time to maximise impact.

STREAMLINING BUSINESS

With the complexity of today’s mortgage cases, there has never been a better time to embrace technology to optimise your business processes.

You can benefit from time-savings and greater efficiencies, and customers’ high expectations of speed and

excellence of service can be satisfied.

Innovative mortgage technology exists to streamline your business and make daily processes more efficient.

For application submissions, solutions such as the easy-to-use Submissions Brain allows you to simply complete, submit, and administer applications digitally while maintaining a compliant audit trail. It’s also free to use for all UK advisers as a standalone platform.

Additionally, the combined use of other tools, such as online product sourcing solution, Sourcing Brain, integrated with criteria and affordability sourcing solutions has created an industry-leading, powerful one-stop suite of products.

Sourcing Brain itself works in the cloud to give users the flexibility to work away from the office. It has recently been redesigned to include streamlined and intuitive navigation and enhanced filtering options to help quickly identify products.

Sourcing Brain’s integration with Criteria Brain and Affordability Brain means that information can be used to pre-populate fields in the criteria and affordability solutions with the added benefit that documentation can be pulled back into Sourcing Brain to meet compliance needs.

Mortgage Brain has transformed mortgage sourcing, empowering advisers to quickly source the best mortgage based on a complete picture of the market starting from a product, criteria, or affordability perspective, depending on the specific requirements of the customer. This provides more transparency across all aspects and gives you peace of mind that you’re providing accurate advice built around your customer’s needs. So, it’s easy to see the time-saving potential of this technology and how it negates the need to constantly contact lenders.

Mortgage Brain also works with partners to provide data suites that add a new level of competitiveness to their businesses with valuable insights into buyer types and products.

The challenge is there. Meet high customer expectations and give them the experience they want when looking for a mortgage. Embracing technology is the way to do it.

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MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY

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ROUND TABLE

TECHNOLOGY

CHANGING WITH THE

TIMES

Jake Carter breaks down the discussion from Mortgage Introducer’s technology round-table, which looked at new technology, the green agenda and the return to offices

F

or decades, one of the prevailing cultural trends – on a local and global level – has been the increasingly rapid evolution and adoption of modern technology. While some areas of the mortgage market have been slower to progress with the times, even this sector is seeing the insurgence of the brave new world, from automated, data-led valuations, to augmented reality viewings and even the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Never has progress been more pronounced and ubiquitous than during the pandemic, which saw the entire property finance sector enter the 21st Century.

Will this innovation fade as the world returns to normal, or has this sparked a new age of technology?

Mortgage Introducer asked experts from Grey Matter Marketing Solutions, Uinsure, finova Payment & Mortgage Services, United Trust Bank (UTB), Mortgage Brain, Enra Specialist Finance and Shawbrook Bank to provide their views.

ALL ABOUT STRATEGY Despite the advancements being made in technology, the fact remains that this market still hinges on personal relationships and in-person meetings. Jeff Knight, strategic marketing consultant at Grey Matter Marketing Solutions, says the need to adopt new technology can therefore vary from one brokerage to the next.

He says: “Brokers get spun a lot with technological updates, but overall it depends on their strategy and the size of the company as to how important it is for them to keep up to date with tech.”

For example, a one-person operation will likely need vastly different technology compared to a firm of 1,000 brokers.

“Technology is crucial within the mortgage process, but you cannot just use it or implement systems for the sake of it, they need to benefit the customer and the journey,” Knight adds.

For example, Buster Tolfree, director of mortgages

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ROUND TABLE

TECHNOLOGY at UTB, has seen brokers attempt to employ open banking earlier on in the process, with mixed results.

“This is an example of spending money and employing the wrong strategy and tactics,” Tolfree explains. “If you’re a medium-sized broker then it is much better to invest your money in a good [customer relationship management system (CRM)].”

He adds that while tools such as open banking have an important role to play, they should arguably be left to lenders to employ.

Similarly, in recent years many mid-sized brokers have created their own platforms and attempted to implement them with different lenders’ systems, which Tolfree says can be costly.

He adds: “Good developers are incredibly expensive and really hard to get a hold of. Most brokers would be better off using a platform which is already out there, rather than wasting recourses trying to make their own.”

Knight explains that it can be difficult for brokers to make the right decisions when it comes to technology, as there are many options.

“Brokers will be asked to use so many different tech systems that it’s understandable some will decide to create their own, which does sometimes work out, but it is always costly,” adds Knight.

Lauren Bagley, chief marketing officer at Uinsure, explains that it is important that businesses have a good understanding of how their customers want them to interact, and build their approach to technology based on these practical considerations.

She says: “Once they have an understanding of how their customers want to be interacted with, then they can start implementing specific systems and processes to accompany this.”

There is a different view or perspective with every subject area, but Simon Murison, head of software

“Technology is crucial within the mortgage process, but you cannot just use it or implement systems for the sake of it, they need to benefit the customer and the journey” JEFF KNIGHT

“Once [businesses] have an understanding of how their customers want to be interacted with, they can start implementing specific systems and processes” LAUREN BAGLEY products at Enra Specialist Finance, says it is also important to consider the short, medium and longterm of technology.

The process to buy is always evolving and has changed dramatically since the pandemic, which is why Murison says it is important to invest in technology that is useful and long-lasting.

Neil Wyatt, sales and marketing director at Mortgage Brain, says: “From the consumer’s perspective, contacting brokers and engaging with brokers is essential for their journey to getting a mortgage.”

Due to this, Wyatt explains that brokers need to identify how their customers want to engage with them, and then match their technological processes to this, rather than starting with the tech itself.

Technology needs to be specific to the type of business in operation, which in turn will provide a better experience for consumers.

“The best way for a business to stand out is by having good customer outcomes, which can be massively progressed and aided through the use of specific technological processes,” adds Bagley.

Bagley believes that while the strategy will vary from one business to another, it is still crucial that brokers adapt to modern technology and provide customers with the best and most up to date service possible.

Claire Rankin, director of strategy and digital transformation at Shawbrook, explains that from her perspective, brokers are always trying to keep up to date.

“There has been a shift in recent times from brokers seeing technology as beneficial, to them viewing it as critical to their operation,” says Rankin.

As the market is faced with vast amounts of choice, variety and complex terminology, it is important that any technology strategy stem from an initial point of education and understanding.

Wyatt says: “We confuse ourselves sometimes with →

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ROUND TABLE

TECHNOLOGY

“There has been a shift in recent times from brokers seeing technology as beneficial, to them viewing it as critical to their operation” CLAIRE RANKIN

the use of the word technology. Technology means so many different things to so many different people. It is complicated because some people know what a CRM system is, some don’t – some understand the basics and others do not.”

SIMPLE SAVINGS For many businesses, rather than engaging in a potentially daunting foray into complex systems, progress means starting from the basics.

“It amazes me how many brokers do not have a website,” Wyatt explains. “I would not even class that as technology, but still a large number do not even meet this expectation.”

Melanie Spencer, head of finova Payment & Mortgage Services, says that when she speaks to brokers she has seenmany different modular operating systems.

“We will sit down with brokers and map out their journey with any said customer and then work out the best technological process and operating systems from this conversation,” says Spencer.

Technology tends to focus on efficiency and saving time, says Rankin: “The quicker all parties involved in the mortgage process can interact with each other, the better the journey is for the customer and therefore the better outcomes.”

Knight agrees that lenders need to focus on speed and efficiency: “Brokers often want to complete an application in 15 minutes, however some lenders’ applications take 45 minutes or more.

“Lenders should be investing more in technology to make the broker’s life easier, and in turn, the customers.”

Spencer adds: “If brokers did not need to spend time working on the admin side of the application, they could provide a better overall service and experience for their customers.”

There is plenty of scope to reduce the time

applications take and make the process more efficient, Wyatt explains: “40% of mortgages can be done online without any need to rekey data, however it comes back to education and the need for brokers to be aware of the right technology and the best approaches.”

However, he asks: “How do you get brokers to use the technology that is available today, rather than them worrying about what is going to be made available tomorrow?”

Some lenders have utilised application programme interfaces (APIs) to connect to sites such as Twenty7Tec, but Spencer feels it is the broker adoption of this which is the issue. Wyatt says that the majority of the information a broker requires can be found within three or four clicks through these sites, but warns that many people do not make effective use of these resources, instead reverting to a phone call with a business development manager (BDM), lender or helpdesk to ask for information instead.

“Brokers must understand the quickest and best approaches to completing their part of a customer’s mortgage journey,” adds Wyatt.

RETURNING TO THE OFFICE With the end of lockdown, although remote and home working have taken hold across the UK, there is still a large number of businesses returning to the office, either entirely or via a hybrid approach. Nevertheless, those businesses looking to return to the ‘old normal’ are not likely to forget the tech advancements made during the pandemic, says Rankin.

“As a lender, I feel we need to help brokers with returning to their offices and keeping on top of, and up to date with, technology,” she adds.

Technology is an enabler, and it is important that it is intuitive and seamless in order to provide a quality customer experience. Rankin explains that if this is

“The technological infrastructure built during the pandemic is still there and it is there to be used.”

SIMON MURISON

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TECHNOLOGY achieved, then there is little concern that brokers will return to their old ways once they have gone back to their offices.

“One of the few positives to come out of the pandemic is the advancement in technological processes, and I believe that they will remain postCOVID,” she continues. “It is on us as to whether we will continue to see this level of technology used during the mortgage process. If we make the systems and processes easy to use as well as accurate, then brokers will continue to use them.”

The likes of Zoom and Teams have been around for several years, but rose significantly in popularity due to home working, becoming near universal. Rather than losing this once it is no longer a necessity, it is likely that many businesses will continue to see the benefits of remote accessibility.

Knight says: “For a broker-client relationship, Zoom and Teams are fantastic for catching up and keeping in touch, as well as providing updates throughout the process.”

However, Knight still notes the importance of faceto-face meetings in terms of developing and furthering relationships.

“There needs to be the right middle ground, both face-to-face meetings and online together can provide the best customer experiences,” he adds.

Improved connectedness also broadens the world of work in many ways, opening up the option to work from anywhere that has a strong internet connection.

This, in theory, widens the talent pool to include those for whom a traditional central office might not fit.

Murison says: “The technological infrastructure built during the pandemic is still there and it is there to be used.”

This might all sound like a brave new world, but Murison believes that despite the benefits, there are many reasons why the UK will likely see a continued stream back into offices. Nevertheless, he believes that companies will not want to fully neglect the investments made into enabling people to work from home now that they can return to the office.

THE GREEN AGENDA The world is more focused than ever on tackling climate change, and for the UK, the goal to reach net zero carbon emissions is an ambitious one. In order to meet it, the housing market is a key area of focus, as it has a key role in reducing the country’s carbon footprint.

This industry, and many others, has already taken one step in reducing emissions during the pandemic, albeit not deliberately, as Bagley says that simply through working from home, the carbon expense of commuting in cars, trains, tubes and buses is saved.

She says: “Another of the biggest reductions to the carbon footprint of the industry that we have seen recently is the switch to paperless documentation. At Uinsure we are focused on encouraging the switch to paperless as it saves time as well as the environment.”

Remote meetings through the use of technology have also had multiple benefits, says Spencer: “Brokers don’t want to be visited all the time by BDMs, and so I think having meetings online is improving their relationships, it also allows for them to have more meetings in a short space of time and reduces the carbon footprint.”

While Knight agrees that there is much being done across the market’s day-to-day operations that can help

“What will be interesting now is to see whether businesses look to build on the advancements they have made, or if they will slowly return to the pre-COVID way of operating” BUSTER TOLFREE the fight against climate change, he believes that relying on the green mortgage products as they are now to improve the housing industry’s footprint is “nonsense.”

“Green mortgage products only reward a certain number of people who already have an efficient home and generally are only for new builds,” he explains.

Rather than simply rewarding those with green properties, the industry should therefore focus more on encouraging people to make improvements. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) could assist by saying that for green mortgages the amount of capital needed is lower, which would encourage lenders to invest in this part of the industry.

Knight says: “A green cashback option, where it is redeemable once people have made green investments to their homes, could be a viable solution.”

There is also a question around whether many →

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ROUND TABLE

TECHNOLOGY in the market have a genuine commitment to sustainability, or whether this is simply a hot topic with which to boosta lender’s profile among a client base that is increasingly drawn to environmental buzzwords.

Tolfree says: “No company wants to activity harm the environment, but there is a lot of hype behind the green agenda with little benefit.”

He explains, for example, that some lenders might a ‘green mortgage’, which simply means they will plant a tree for each deal.

Nevertheless, there is still a benefit, Murison says: “Whatever the intentions, the people funding these mortgages want to raise their own profiles within the green sector.

People are beginning to care about where their money is coming from and whether it is coming from someone who is in support of the green agenda. This in turn is making more people forced to care, whether they really do or not.”

ADVANCING INSURANCE Technology might also be key to promoting the advancement of areas such as insurance, which have traditionally faced issues in encouraging uptake among clients, not least because of a prevailing reluctance among brokers to enter into long-winded, complex

“As businesses we all have our own role to play in terms of the green agenda and I believe that as it stands, a lot more could be done to support this cause” NEIL WYATT

discussions.

However, Bagley feels that technology can provide this side of the market with much-needed “convenience, speed and simplicity.”

She continues: “Insurance can be difficult to encourage customers to purchase, but it is necessary to anyone that owns a home. Insurance technology that is available to advisers has innovated much quicker than similar markets.”

Customers will often be presented with a long list of questions in order to access insurance, but advisers have an opportunity to lessen the burden by using the technology available to them to speed up the process.

Technology might also help to ensure that a conversation about insurance is seen as part of the mortgage advice process, rather than an optional add-on.

Wyatt says: “You tend to have the mortgage fact find

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DECEMBER 2021

“If brokers did not need to spend time working on the admin side of the application, they could provide a better overall service and experience for their customers” MELANIE SPENCER and the mortgage CRM, but there isn’t a medical fact find or anything similar. There needs to be a single data entry that covers both, and if there isn’t, the process needs to be simplified.”

WORKING WITH THE BEST While it might be tempting to ask for a simple, definitive list of which programmes, apps and resources will provide a business with the best tools to work efficiently, communicate regularly and engage their clients, it is not that simple.

Knight says: “You can ask one broker what their favourite sourcing system is and they’ll tell you one answer, and you can ask another and they’ll say something entirely different.”

As a general rule, if a programme or process is being employed by lenders, it will fit with a certain standard.

It is therefore simply a case of a broker’s individual needs and preferences as to which they use themselves.

Knight adds: “While education of course would be a benefit in any scenario, I don’t think it will result in there being a clear cut answer on what technological processes should be used, as brokers opinions will still vary.”

Rankin feels that the onus is largely on lenders to encourage brokers to engage with their technological advancements, not least because they are the ones investing in it, but also to take the burden of technical expertise off them.

She says: “I personally try to make it as easy as possible for brokers to use Shawbrook’s systems and processes, rather than relying on them to have a certain level of technological expertise.

“I want to build our systems for the broker that uses us once a year, rather than the one that uses us all the time.”

While some might want to commit to a product and stick with it, working with the best systems also means adopting early and being able to adapt and grow along with advancements in the market.

Wyatt says: “Tech will never be perfect and brokers need to adopt it at the standard it is at now, as it will no doubt benefit their clients. The technology is there, and if it wasn’t then lenders wouldn’t be investing millions of pounds into it. It is about whether the brokers and the end users understand the benefit of using it.”  www.mortgageintroducer.com

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REVIEW

PLATFORMS

A time to take stock of what is on offer Neal Jannels managing director, One Mortgage System (OMS)

F

ollowing the culmination of the stamp duty holiday at the end of September, it was inevitable that we would see a lull in activity and enquiries from potential buyers. Not that interest in becoming a homeowner has fallen off a cliff, far from it.

This remains a primary aspiration for huge numbers of people across the UK, as does taking the next step up the property ladder for existing homeowners. The remortgage market is also really coming to life as speculation mounts around an imminent interest rate rise and vast numbers of homeowners and landlords are nearing the end of their mortgage terms.

It remains a busy time for intermediaries. However, after navigating a past 12 to 18 months where activity levels went through the roof and advisers were used to working all hours, then simply being ‘busy’ may feel like they have a little more time of their hands than they are used to.

So, what can advisers be doing with this ‘extra’ time in preparation for the year ahead?

Plenty is the answer, but where to

start is the next question? Let’s start with technology.

It’s a perfect time to review what types of technology firms and individuals are using, or not using. In the modern market, there are many readily available platforms which outline their ability to support and streamline processes. I’m sure that all intermediary firms are inundated with marketing material from tech providers promising this and that but how can firms ensure they are benefiting from the types of tech offerings which could really benefit their business?

Cost will always be an important part of this equation and whilst it should be the case that tech providers are fully transparent regarding their pricing, unfortunately this is not always the case. I’ve used this analogy before but have no qualms about repeating that partnering with a tech provider is like buying a car. In so much that rarely will you pay the base model cost. Therefore, it’s important not to be swayed by multiple features that sound great but, in reality, are ones which firms will either struggle to implement or use initially then never touch again.

This may seem like a silly thing to say but all too often I’ve heard about intermediary firms opting for systems which they don’t really know how to use and not have a comprehensive training plan or support in place to bridge this knowledge gap. For those firms looking to invest in any new

It’s a perfect time to review what types of technology platforms firms and individuals are using

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MORTGAGE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2021

technology, I urge intermediaries to make sure that this comes with an acceptable training package and not just a two minute YouTube link.

I’m of the belief that investing in any significant piece of software should include substantial ‘onboarding’ support. This can be the difference between getting value or wasting money on functions that will never be used. We’ve all been there.

Technology can also open the door to new markets and revenue streams as opportunities continue to emerge. Take the protection market for example.

As highlighted in research from the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) - in partnership with Legal & General and Royal London - this is an area which is experiencing increased consumer demand. This data showed that 57% of advisers say protection discussions with clients have increased in the past 12 months and 42% say their clients are now more open to discussing protection. It also revealed that 1 in 4 advisers are now passing protection business to a specialist, up from 1 in 7 last year.

In addition, 40% of 18-34s say they would consider income protection as a result of COVID-19 when they wouldn’t have before - twice as many as those aged 35-54 (19%) and 10 times as likely as over 55s (4%).

However, 55% of mortgage customers who used a broker have never bought protection products from them with over a third (37%) saying they don’t think they need it. 52% of consumers think income protection is important yet only 7% have it.

In recent times, we’ve partnered with Uinsure and iPipeline to help open up more doors to this type of business for mortgage advisers. Tech advances in these areas, and many more, have resulted in the ability to pre-populate quotes and policies which add real value to clients and allow advisers to offer a more complete financial services solution.

Time spent reviewing tech agreements or identifying new ones should certainly not be seen as time lost. This may just prove key to present and future success. So, what are you waiting for?  www.mortgageintroducer.com

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