The Exchange is owned by Marlborough Stirling and is the market-leading supplier of e-commerce services to IFAs. Its Exweb portal is open to the whole industry and has over 18,000 registered users processing 99 million quotes per annum. Mortgage Brain is the market-leading supplier of mortgage sourcing, client management and compliance software and electronic trading services to mortgage intermediaries and financial advisers with over 18,000 customers throughout the UK
The agreement comes at a time when the needs of mortgage intermediaries are converging with those of regulated IFAs as the mortgage market moves towards statutory regulation. Exweb will now offer a comprehensive, integrated financial services trading platform that spans the life, pension, investment, mortgage and general insurance sectors.
Under the terms of the agreement:
· The Exchange will power its Mortgage Centre on Exweb with Mortgage Brain’s :Broker mortgage sourcing and electronic trading service and will market this to its 18,000 customers
· Users of both platforms benefit from integration between The Exchange’s quotation and new business services and Mortgage Brain’s :Broker mortgage sourcing and Mortgage Trading Exchange services. This enables client and quotation information to be automatically transferred between the platforms so that intermediaries do not have to enter the same information multiple times.
This is the first step in a long-term strategic partnership between the companies that is expected to result in the integration of the point-of-sale systems with the broader range of services available from both companies. This will benefit IFAs, mortgage introducers and lenders by streamlining the application processing of mortgages and related products.
Mark Lofthouse, chief executive officer at Mortgage Brain, comments:
“Combining the strengths of our respective products offers mortgage intermediaries and IFAs maximum business benefit so that they can provide the best service possible to their clients. Efficiency improvements mean that more business can be generated and processed in a compliant manner in a shorter period of time”
Sue Summers, managing director at The Exchange, comments:
“Against a backdrop of regulatory, commercial and technological change this alliance will deliver significant benefits to the mortgage market at a time when innovation is key to success. By choosing Mortgage Brain as our first partner for integration with Exweb these arrangements build on the experience of the two leading platforms in the financial services market and are set to add value to the businesses of a significant proportion of the intermediary market.”
