"Fortunately, the technology is available to help you find the right fit for your customers. It’s up to you how you use these platforms as part of your advice process."
Today things have changed. Price remains a significant consideration for all customers and traditional sourcing systems continue to play a big role in the advice process, but there are other considerations in identifying the right mortgage for a customer and new technology platforms to help brokers carry out the research.
The first area to start challenging price as a critical component of mortgage sourcing was criteria. With the emergence of specialist lenders catering for a variety of customer needs, understanding the criteria of those lenders became an important task for brokers, and technology providers stepped up to make that task easier and more efficient. Today, there’s a range of criteria research platforms, such as Criteria Brain and Knowledge Bank, while Twenty7Tec was launched as a criteria-driven sourcing system. Using one of these platforms at the outset can help you better understand which lenders will be open to your customer’s unique circumstances.
More recently, mortgage affordability has been added to the sourcing mix. With house prices continuing to rise, being able to borrow enough money to afford the right property is a key consideration for brokers. Many say that they carry out affordability research at the outset of a case to understand how much their customers are able to borrow. At the same time, affordability is becoming more complex, with different lenders taking their own approach, particularly for customers with additional or self-employed income. Again, this is another area that has attracted tech investment and development, and some of the affordability sourcing platforms include Mortgage Broker Tools, Affordability Hub and Broker Sense. Some businesses also offer a range of tools within one platform. L&G for example, has its SmartrFit, which includes sourcing for affordability and criteria.
Sourcing mortgages is certainly not as straightforward as it used to be, but this isn’t a bad thing. It’s a sign of a diverse and multi-faceted market that can provide solutions for a full range of customer circumstances. Fortunately, the technology is available to help you find the right fit for your customers. It’s up to you how you use these platforms as part of your advice process.
At Pepper Money, we’re pleased to feature on sourcing systems and research platforms across the market to give brokers the freedom to source in the way that best suits them. We also continue to further our relationships with these partners, with a great example being our recent launch of the APPLY module on the Twenty7Tec platform. Making it easier for brokers to work with us is a key focus for Pepper Money, which is why we continue to embrace technology to underpin our human approach to underwriting. The launch of AVMs last year on residential remortgages provides a smoother journey for brokers and their customers.
Although it is completely understandable that these sourcing and research platforms focus on rate, affordability, and criteria, a fundamental component remains overlooked by these platforms. Service levels are always a key consideration for brokers, irrespective of whether it’s a purchase case or a remortgage, and this is particularly true in a rising rate environment. It is important that, once the broker has found the right rate to suit their customer’s needs, they can place the application with the confidence they are able to secure the deal before circumstances change.
