Despite greater focus on technology, Alistair Hancock, chief executive officer at Rubicon Software, said lenders were not adopting a holistic approach.
He said: “The industry is not very well served by technology. While there is a drive for efficiency to reduce the cost of manpower, this does not have a good impact on service and reduces the effectiveness of what is trying to be achieved. It is all very well talking about automatic decisions, but there is also important information that needs to be captured by lenders and this typically requires personal skills.”
Hancock added that too much emphasis is placed on reducing lenders’ overheads to the detriment of brokers and consumers and called on lenders to focus more on the entire mortgage chain.
“The urgency in getting speed in terms of decision needs to be tempered in terms of accuracy. A rapid response makes people less likely to shop around, but I wouldn’t say this is happening at the moment.”
Alan Lakey, partner at Highclere Financial Services, agreed: “Technology is definitely to the detriment of service. Now a computer makes the decision and that’s it – it’s very hard to overrule. Technology is a double-edged sword. Lenders win in every regard, but the loss to brokers is time and glitches.”
