In the latest instalment of our Mortgage Tech Series, we spoke to Tanjir Sugar from Mortgage Magic.
Mortgage Introducer’s Mortgage Tech Series features Q&As with businesses that aim to revolutionise the property market by integrating technology to create an optimised solution.
In this instalment, we spoke to Tanjir Sugar, chief executive at Mortgage Magic (pictured), to discuss the reasons for creating Mortgage Magic, how they differ from other CRM providers and plans for the next 12 months.
Tell us about Mortgage Magic.
As mortgage brokers ourselves, Mortgage Magic was born out of our frustration with the existing crop of legacy software providers for managing a mortgage broking business and the multiple yet incompatible means of interacting with lenders, many of which were still manual. Mortgage Magic’s principals teamed up with Silicon Valley technology specialists to produce a complete digital business management platform specifically designed for the UK mortgage industry.
It marries a cutting edge CRM facility for managing customers with a seamless front end which follows the customer journey from enquiry to completion. The platform incorporates all the latest technology features to enable mortgage advisers to efficiently and compliantly conduct their business, including mortgage and protection sourcing integration, where required.
What was the main reason for creating Mortgage Magic?
Without meaningful competition in the space, the UK lending market had been burdened with older legacy based systems in areas from sourcing to customer management with few alternatives against which to compare existing suppliers. In the absence of viable alternatives, the intermediary sector put up with the hindrance of working with antiquated facilities that rarely worked as had been hoped or could be integrated with other services.
The only reason they had lasted as long as they had was that in the absence of new thinking and viable competition, suppliers had little incentive to innovate. By way of illustration, we only have to see what happened when a disruptor like Twenty7Tec arrived in the sourcing market a few years ago. The impact they made ignited a long overdue spurt of positive activity in that space, which has led to better sourcing systems through greater innovation than at any time in the past ten to fifteen years.
In a highly regulated environment like mortgages, there has also been a reluctance to engage and integrate meaningful compliance modules into existing systems. The main reason being that up to now most of those who understand technology know very little about regulation and those who understand regulatory compliance have not been technology-focused. As a result, this vital piece of the mortgage adviser puzzle has been neglected.
So, like Twenty7Tec in the sourcing market, Mortgage Magic is bringing innovation and modern methodology to bear in order to produce a platform for today’s industry, rather than yesterday’s.
As a mortgage broker, I knew what had been missing and was in the best position to bring to bear the talents necessary to tackle the issues and create an end to end enquiry to completion facility, married to a fully GDPR and regulatory compliant customer management service. Powerful, cost effective and easy to adopt.
How is Mortgage Magic's approach different to other suppliers using blockchain technology?
I am unaware of any commercially active supplier in our sector who has incorporated blockchain into their tech stack. Our methodology is very unique and is our own invention.
If you could describe Mortgage Magic in three words, what would they be?
Futureproof mortgage technology.
How do you differ from other CRM providers?
As different as night is from day. No other provider currently offers the same package of end to end client centred modular mortgage, protection and overall customer management system in one simple to use package. MM manages the customer journey from data entry through the whole lifetime of the relationship with their adviser. There is nothing in the same space which is even close to MM’s platform.
Mortgage Magic is a cloud-based platform. What is the guarantee of data security?
We only use IBM infrastructure. IBM being a pioneer in security and one of the most respected players in the world ensures that data security is maintained without compromise. Our data security is guaranteed by IBM's data security charter.
As the market gets more competitive, what are your plans for the next 12 months to stay ahead of the competition?
This is the age of collaboration rather than competition. We are keen to collaborate across the industry as can be seen by our integration with Twenty7Tec and iPipeline as well as our work with specialist finance hub, Brightstar, where we are employing our expertise to build the new platform through which they will engage their introducers, partners and service providers more effectively.
I am very eager to work with other businesses, not only to improve our platform but enhance every business with which we work. The greater the level of collaboration, the better it will be for the industry as a whole. There is room for everyone to benefit, so we welcome the chance to talk with all industry stakeholders such as mortgage brokers, networks, lenders and other service and product providers.
We are fully focused on creating an evolving and robust platform which will enable mortgage advisers and other financial brokers to benefit from an always up to date end to end experience. Coming down the line, we have a lot of new exciting new features such as full UK lender integration, augmented advice and a new digital package for brokers to name just a few innovations in the pipeline.
At Mortgage Magic our motto is ‘collaboration via effective integration’.
