The Intermediary – March 2025 - Flipbook - Page 80
T E C H N O L O GY
Opinion
Mortgage tech: Put
customers first –
that means brokers
I
t is well known that buying a
home is stressful. Saving for a
hey deposit, working on your
credit score, finding payslips
or SA302s, bank statements,
proof of expenses, bills, all
your outstanding credit card balances,
loans and car finance, finding a
broker, a lender, crossing your fingers
and biting your nails hoping you get
a mortgage agreement in principle.
Instructing a solicitor. Estate agents.
All that before you even find the
perfect house or apartment, coage in
the country or pied-a-terre.
Our recent research found that
half of all those who have applied
for a mortgage say the feeling they
most associate with the mortgage
application process is anxiety. One
in 10 would rather be stuck in a li
for 12 hours straight than go through
the process again. One in eight
would rather listen to roadworks
continuously for four hours. The
stress for home buyers is clear.
However, we talk a lot less about how
stressful it can be for brokers – but
we should.
Chasing all the above for the buyer,
dealing with the demands, the tears,
the endless questions, the paperwork,
endless bits of paperwork geing
stuck with the solicitor, chasing said
solicitor, the mortgage valuation,
answering underwriters’ questions,
keying and rekeying and keying again
to get applications over the line.
There is always something else –
and oen the process can be fraught
with short-tempers with oen
lile thanks.
Brokers are frazzled
With the added weight of compliance,
marketing, staff and running a
business, the actual business of giving
mortgage advice can feel like being
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The Intermediary | March 2025
a therapist or mediator in the rocky
road to marriage of borrower and
lender. Show me a broker who doesn’t
feel frazzled at least once a week.
Meanwhile, lenders heavily rely
on them to do all this heavy liing.
The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders
Association (IMLA) estimates that the
share of mortgage business conducted
through intermediaries will continue
its upwards trajectory, rising from
87% in 2024 to 89% in 2025 and 91%
in 2026. Without intermediaries,
the mortgage market would not run
smoothly. They are a vital cog in
the machine.
It seems poor to me that there
is still so much mess and waiting
around in the journey from
application to approval. Depending
on the borrower’s income source
and financial situation, it can take
anything from two to six weeks.
Sometimes longer. The process of
completing a purchase in the UK now
takes an average of six months. That is
half a year.
There are various reasons for this.
Ask brokers, and they’ll tell you it’s the
lawyers who always slow things down.
Mortgage lenders have lile control
over this – other than by holding their
panel to account – but they do have
control over their own systems and
processes. They do have the power
to make life a lot easier for advisers,
to save them a lot of time, stress and
needless admin.
Some lenders are beer than others,
but not enough. Most lenders in the
UK are still relying on legacy systems
dating back decades, patched and
patched and patched. No wonder the
process is clunky.
This has a tangible impact on
brokers, though. Take just one
example: product refreshes. Lenders
and intermediaries know rates and
JERRY MULLE
is UK managing director
at Ohpen
deals change all the time. They ebb
and flow depending on prudential
requirements, changing regulations,
fluctuating interest rates, swap rates,
the broader economic outlook.
Throughout the year, quarterly
lending targets affect product
pricing, typically starting a quarter
competitive before rising slightly to
stem lending flow and then coming
down again at the end of the quarter to
get the last of the allocated funding out
of the door.
Product withdrawals and launches
are a fact of life. How long do they
take to do, though? That’s a choice
made by the lender. It comes down
to the technology platforms they
use. Investing in a wholesale change
from legacy platforms to a brand-new
system is a big decision for lenders.
There is a business case to be made
to justify the cost; the decision will
always involve alternative options.
Adding another patch or a new app on
the front end might seem easier, less
risky, or even cheaper.
It’s a mistake to think that. A fully
thought-through business case to
invest in cloud-based tech should
come down to more than cost. It
should be about how cost-effective that
investment is long-term.
Repricing products, using all the
data lenders have siing in their
systems doing nothing, processing
applications – all this can be done
faster and more accurately than it is by
most lenders.
Not only does cloud-based tech allow
lenders to operate more efficiently and
cost-effectively, it does the one thing
that all businesses must do to survive.
It puts the customer first. For lenders,
that means brokers. ●
