The portal called Acumen was the winner in the ‘Innovation in the delivery of financial products’ category.
Aldermore commercial mortgages managing director Rob Lankey said: “Acumen represents a step-change in the commercial mortgage market; for the first time brokers can submit an enquiry online and receive a heads of terms document immediately without the need for any human intervention.”
Lankey said the development of Acumen took considerable commitment and dedication from the team and winning the award was testament to their hard work and the next stage was now being developed.
Aldermore launched Acumen in March this year and the new system received critical acclaim within the commercial mortgage market.
Kit Thompson from Brightstar Financial said: “I’ve been using Aldermore’s online portal Acumen since the launch and it has proved to be a great way to fast-track our commercial enquiries to indicative offer stage.
“The fact that we can transact with Aldermore 24 -7 is a great unique selling point for Aldermore and helps strengthen our own proposition.”
Doug Hall from 3mc said: “Acumen is not an evolution it’s a revolution in the commercial mortgage market. Until now the perceived wisdom has been that it’s impossible to develop an online system which provides genuine decisions because of the complexity of commercial mortgage deals but Aldermore has turned conventional thinking on its head.”
Hall said the system was easy to use and he felt reassured that he could still call to speak to lending managers if he wanted to discuss specific details about his deal.
Mike Freeman, Mortgages for Business, said: “Acumen is a really useful tool for brokers to get a quick decision in principle. It also produces heads of terms which can be put in front of the customer as a detailed illustration of the deal. We’ve found it easy to understand and very user-friendly. In the long term it will definitely save us valuable administration time.”
