James Sherwood-Rogers, Managing Director of Quest

myintroducer.com catches up with James Sherwood-Rogers, Managing Director of Quest, the IT solutions provider for the UK property market.

Related topics:  In The Spotlight
Millie Dyson
31st May 2011
In The Spotlight
myi: Where does Quest fit in the market?

The company has an extremely rich heritage in the survey and valuation software space, having introduced the very first electronic survey system into the market almost 30 years ago.

There aren’t many technology companies successfully operating today that can claim to have started when personal computing was being bought to market, and is still continually innovating and making waves today, particularly in the current economic climate.

There are three core areas to the Quest business: as well as leading the way in the survey and mortgage valuation software field, Quest is innovating in the property risk management sector, and is also heavily involved in the energy performance sectors by providing solutions for assessors to simplify energy reporting in the residential and commercial fields.

With Quest being part of Landmark Information Group, our clients also benefit from the range of risk management reporting tools that Landmark provide, including flood risk reports and contaminated land assessments.

Finally, as well as our bespoke software products, we also provide a layer of consultancy to clients in the areas of valuation workflow, risk management, valuation audit and fraud detection.

myi: What role does technology play in combating fraud?

Technology plays a significantly increasing role in helping to combat mortgage fraud – for example the automated nature of our award-winning Q-Guard tool checks every valuation report for potential risks or areas of concern and alerts lenders so they can investigate further.  

Similarly our AuditSure tool enables surveyors to manage their own due diligence procedures by applying rule sets across all transactions automatically. Focussed audit sampling rather than random selection.  

So, technology applies a layer of intelligent investigation across all cases, providing a greater level of security to the financial markets.

And, in today’s climate when police resources have been scaled back and fraudsters are attempting to stay ahead of the game, technology plays a major role in preventing risk, removing some of the burdens from the investigative end of the trail.

myi: In your view, what else does the industry need to consider in order to reduce incidences of mortgage fraud?

We work closely with our clients, which includes panel managers, surveyors and lenders, plus we are involved in various industry groups to discuss the future of mortgage fraud and what more can be done to reduce levels of risk.

What is clear to me is that there is still a need for the industry to work closer together to share much more information.  By having a cross market view, much more risk will become visible and less able to hide behind individual systems or processes of specific organisations.

What is in the pipeline at Quest?

We are continually working on new projects and have two major updates planned for this year.  It’s too early to reveal them now, but I would suggest readers of MyIntroducer keep an eye out for announcements.

In the 30 years Quest has been operating, the business hasn’t stood still – we are continually looking at ways to support our clients with new innovations, and this year is no exception.
More like this
Latest from Property Reporter
Latest from Protection Reporter
CLOSE
Subscribe
to our newsletter

Join a community of over 30,000 intermediaries and keep up-to-date with industry news and upcoming events via our newsletter.