Following last week’s news that Conveyancing Alliance Ltd (CAL) is to launch a website that offers brokers the ability to obtain a quote and instruct a solicitor in around one minute and track cases from start to finish with real-time updates, the industry is looking at what will be available next in the ever expanding arena of online mortgage services.
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While many brokers believe that customer service and competitive rates are the key areas for lenders to focus on to attract more intermediary business, the provision of an efficient and productive online system is proving to be equally important.
So what is currently available to brokers? Lenders are very aware of the need to provide an online platform and have subsequently developed options to makes online enquiries easier, but some firms have gone a step further than the rest to produce straightforward, yet efficient systems.
Making life easier
CAL has geared its website towards the benefit of the broker, and making life easier for them. With instant access to specialist firms offering home moving services via an online system that is designed with ease of use in mind, CAL has set broker’s requirements at the heart of its proposition.
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CAL’s national sales manager, Ian Turrell, explains that one of the benefits of the site is the speed of getting responses from solicitors due to the way that the site is designed, and with XML technology featured there is no manual intervention needed from the solicitor as the system will ‘talk’ directly.
But where does this leave online services in the mortgage industry for brokers and lenders? Do lenders need to match up to what is being offered elsewhere in order to meet demand, or is there opportunity to scope other areas that are not offered elsewhere?
Kensington Mortgages is a lender that has specialised in online services, with the recent developments in its K-net e-commerce platform for online applications also in the news recently. The changes have made it faster and more intuitive. Intended to benefit intermediaries doing business with specialist lenders, brokers can save their work within the current page and with the page refresh removed, they retain their position on the page when entering data. Intermediaries can also conduct a full search on existing cases.
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Welcoming innovation
One broker who welcomed the move into more online services by lenders was Jonathan Barnett, director at All Mortgage Matters. He claimed that having online offerings was a real benefit to his business, particularly with those systems that allow your work to be saved on the website – such as the K-net platform.
Barnett said: “It’s great to have online offerings as I can save the document on my PC and with offline compliancy I can save the progress on the website. I wish more lenders would do this, to be honest.”
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An application system that has proved to be popular in the mortgage industry is Northern Rock online, which operational director, John Watson, described as delivering a considerable percentage of company’s business.
Watson said: “The Northern Rock online portal has won awards and is easy to use and access. We feel that it has had a very strong impact on the industry and its use both online and offline means that it has proved very useful and popular with brokers. They can track orders from application to completion online.
“It is very important for lenders to have a presence online and offer a service to match the other sites out there, and we feel that a benchmark is set with what we offer.”
Another lender with an online development is BM Solutions, which launched the One Minute Mortgage in 2001 to meet the needs of brokers who wanted an efficient system that delivered fast results. Benefits of this system include a decision in under a minute, accurate Key Facts Illustrations and case-tracking.
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Additionally there is the ability to make multiple buy-to-let applications. By typing in a client’s details the system will automatically copy them into any additional applications. With paperless applications also featured, you can confirm within the One Minute Mortgage system that your client has read and understood the important customer information document.
Iain Williamson, head of key accounts at BM Solutions, said: “BM has always made online innovation a priority, because of this we have been able to reap the rewards of being a front runner.”
The importance of having an online presence spreads itself across business, but in the mortgage industry this is more and more crucial as intermediaries look for fast and straightforward methods of doing business. What the next stage for lenders is remains unclear, but what has been done so far is already proving to be successful with mortgage intermediaries nationwide.
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