The event, hosted by the Derbyshire Building Society, in conjunction with The Mortgage Portal, centred on discussions over e-commerce issues facing the industry and solutions that open standards could deliver.
Key emphases included the improvement of industry e-communications, with data accuracy and submission particularly under the spotlight.
Intermediary representatives included Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol, Richard Wood from Mortgage Intelligence and Ben Stafford, policy officer at the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI).
Paul Pettit, managing director of Origo, was also in attendance.
Other attendees included representatives from the Nottingham, Norwich & Peterborough, Cheshire and Stroud & Swindon building societies. Mike Taylor, Derbyshire Building Society’s intermediary sales manager, chaired the forum.
Taylor said: “The Derbyshire is at the forefront of this debate into whether or not there should be a co-ordinated approach to open standards for the mortgage industry.
“We plan to host an industry summit in the next few months and would like to hear from interested parties who wish to attend.”
Stafford said: “Open standards can provide the basis for significant improvements in the mortgage industry and interest such as this is bound to grow.”
But Simon Chalk, mortgage planner at Mortgage Portfolio Services, said: “Talks, talks, talks – that’s the problem we’ve got. Our job is to arrange options and select products quickly and efficiently, and we’re hampered immensely by the fact that every lender and his dog has an online system which works around their needs and not ours. We need to get the industry heavyweights round the table and work out a common trading platform.”
