Nationwide launches automatic verification technology

Nationwide Building Society has launched automatic verification technology to speed up affordability assessments for intermediaries.

TheOptical Character Recognition (OCR) toolhas been introducedfor all mortgage affordability assessments,with its ‘intelligent capture’ featureprovidingdigital read on documentswith the ability to identify text and values from an image and thentransferthe information into a digital format.

Ian Andrew, intermediary relationships directorat Nationwide,said: “Nationwide has implemented this type of intelligent processing to use as part of the affordability assessment, automating a part of the process that was previously manual to include 100% of all mortgage applications and speeding it up by at least 24 hours.

“Through market-leading use of technology, we are able to reduce the time it takes to assess applications so that brokers can work through cases and provide their customers with their offers really quickly.

“We will be offering the benefits of this across all our processing in the near future.”

This launchfollows on from Nationwide’s previous investment to provide automated income verificationand will be rolled out across all document types over the coming months.

Nationwideworkedwith fintech partner EDM Group to create a uniquely responsive tool that can automatecomplexincome affordability processing.

This toolautomatically verifies information on documentstoreducethe need for manual interventionwhich hopes toallow cases to be underwrittenfastand offers to be madequicker.

Spencer Wyer, chief technology officeratEDM Group, added:“We are really pleased to be part of Nationwide’s incredibly innovative transformation of the mortgage origination journey, making it ever easier and faster for brokers to apply.

“It was a brilliant opportunity for us to work closely with their digital team to help automate income verification in a really unique way.”