Fears that building societies would be the most likely to fall at the online KFI hurdle seem to have come to fruition following the startling findings from Mortgage Introducer – News’ KFI survey.
An overwhelming 25 out of the 29 lenders who failed to confirm their online KFI would be ready for ‘Mortgage Day’ are building societies; the majority are smaller societies.
However, eight out of the top 20 largest UK building societies were in the list, including Newcastle; Principality; Leeds & Holbeck; Derbyshire; Cheshire; Stroud & Swindon; Dunfermline and Nottingham.
And both Melton Mowbray and Mansfield Building Society confirmed that they would not have their online KFIs ready for 31 October.
Doug Woolley, senior development manager at Melton Mowbray, which derives nearly 60 per cent of its mortgage business from intermediaries, said: “We will not have KFIs on our website for the foreseeable future. It’s simply to do with cost. We are aware that we will have to have online KFIs very soon.
“We are heavily relying on brokers going to the sourcing systems to get KFIs but we know we may suffer if intermediaries have no faith in these systems.”
Woolley added: “We will be monitoring the situation from now until January next year to see where each piece of business comes from.”
Peter Doherty, product manager at Mansfield Building Society, confirmed: “We will not have an online KFI facility available on ‘Mortgage Day’. We will produce KFIs from 31 October direct to mortgage applicants.”
He added: “The major sourcing databases have received sample KFIs and are currently undertaking tolerance checks so that intermediaries can obtain KFIs from these systems.
“This work is ongoing. We are currently exploring the feasibility of providing KFIs to intermediaries when requested to do so.”
Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at Charcol, commented: “These lenders will probably see a reduction in business without online KFIs. Therefore, they may have to come out with more competitive products although this would mean more costs for them.”
