In June, Cheltenham & Gloucester launched its online ‘Caseflow’ system and I recently put the service through its paces. Submissions are processed centrally, although the lender insists advisers will be able to continue to benefit from relationships they have built up with individual branches. When initially registering for the service, brokers nominate a branch they want to deal with. These offices are able to access data on the system and so can be contacted for updates.
Advisers select their own user name and password but there is no separate log-in mechanism for administrators. This is a significant omission, the practical effect of which I would expect to be the sharing of passwords across teams, with consequent undermining of security.
Standard advances below £500,000 will be processed via a dedicated unit. Loans in excess of this amount or outside criteria will be referred to the nominated branch. Cases declined can be appealed by the adviser submitting a recommendation to branch for review. The service is available 22 hours a day, seven days per week and valuations instructed within 24 hours.
Caseflow produces an instant decision, even if this is a referral to the branch. The decision is subject to valuation and confirmation of status if required. Personally I would have liked to have seen some use of automated valuation models, especially for low loan-to-value cases, so that unconditional offers might be made for high quality lending.
Any status documentation required can be certified and faxed through using a specific fax header to make sure it ties up with the right case. I’m not convinced that fax, actually invented 10 years before the telephone, is really the best way to do this; there must be a compelling case for the use of scanned documents as an alternative.
Data entered to obtain a Key Facts Illustration (KFI) is reused for any decision-in-principle (DIP) and in turn to a full application. While this is a move in the right direction, I am disappointed not to see the ability to reuse the information captured via the factfind, in the adviser’s client management and sourcing systems.
A positive note
On a positive note, no signature is required on an application and payments of any valuation and administration fees can be made online. Although surprisingly, a signature is required on the direct debit mandate which is then faxed through. The technical help desk only opens between 9am-6pm Monday to Friday, 9am-2pm on Saturdays and no Sunday service. This could leave users in difficulty if they convince a client to use Cheltenham & Gloucester outside normal office hours and then run into problems.
When key milestones are cleared, text messages are sent to the applicant, although there is no option to offer this facility to advisers or their administrators. This is a grave oversight – how many advisers will be happy with a system where their client knows more than they do?
Consent for references, credit scoring and the necessary declarations are all obtained online. Overall, the navigation is clean and simple. Cheltenham & Gloucester deserves considerable credit for ensuring all KFIs are verified on Mortgage Brain and Trigold. The market would benefit from all lenders taking such responsibilities as seriously.
All documents created can be printed and or saved as PDFs. Property details are not used when obtaining a DIP, but when entered into the full application they are checked against lending policy. For incomplete applications, the system makes it very clear where extra information is needed.
Status history shows how the case has proceeded and the date various milestones were reached. Case-tracking provides a task list of individual activities that are necessary. Such information is originally included in the decisions/FMA confirmation. These are shown as completed as the information is received, and this can be used for an adviser to create their own reminders. At any point in the process a revised KFI can be generated in the event of any changes to the application.
A worthwhile start
Cheltenham & Gloucester wants to make this an adviser’s first port of call to submit applications. Given current limitations within sourcing systems, i.e. the inability to carry out affordability and credit scoring checks, this is probably a reasonable tactical approach. However, advisers need to be able to benefit from automated record-keeping in order to stay on top of their compliance burden. In the long run, the market needs to recognise that this will ultimately mean submission via client management systems like Dashboard and The Key in conjunction with sourcing engines. No one lender can deliver this on its own, but concerted moves to find an industry solution are long overdue.
Overall I think Caseflow is between a quarter and a third of the way to delivering the sort of service that advisers should expect from lenders offering a leading edge e-commerce proposition. In the meantime this is a worthwhile start.
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