Currently it takes Habito 24 hours to manually send an application in principle but shortly this will be automated and lenders will respond in real time.
Digital mortgage broker Habito will introduce real time mortgage approvals by the end of the quarter after receiving a £5.5m capital injection from Silicon Valley-based Ribbit Capital.
Currently it takes Habito 24 hours to manually send an application in principle but shortly this will be automated and lenders will respond in real time.
Daniel Hegarty (pictured), founder and chief executive of Habito, said: “In the first quarter of the year we will focus on real time mortgage approvals.
“From arriving on the website you will be able to go through the fact find, automated advice and submission process within 30 minutes.
“It depends on the complexity of the case but the majority of the big lenders will be able to give us a response in real time.”
Hegarty said major lenders are already on board with the exception of HSBC, though he expects to be working with all large lenders by mid-2017.
Customers have the option of talking to the broker or staying in contact via a livechat box on the website to make sure they understand what they are getting themselves into.
Secondly, Hegarty said Habito will focus on improving its mortgage alert service by monitoring consumers’ deals and checking when they can remortgage and save money.
He added: “Once clients are signed up we will monitor the product they are on, taking into account early repayment charges to see if we can find them a better deal.
“Now we’ve got a client bank it’s something we’ll focus on.”
Habito has been live for nine months and in that time the broker has seen business grow by an average 30% month-on-month, processing £50m application to date.
After raising £1.55m of seed funding with the help of Transferwise and Funding Circle last year this latest round brings the total raised to £8.2m.
David Hollingworth, associate director of communications at London & Country, said: “If lenders are starting to open up more direct plugged-in processes which save time on form-filling that can only be a good thing.
“It’s the duplication of data you’ve already collected that’s a waste of everyone’s time.
“Lenders have invested money in their own systems but aren’t asking the same questions, which makes it difficult to have one unified approach.
“That’s the challenge.”
