Direct distribution via telephony has also suffered over the last three years, according to the Iress annual mortgage efficiency benchmark survey 2016, falling by 35% as branch and telephony functionality fell by 30% and 20%, respectively.
Eight areas were considered in Iress’s measurement of channel functionality: quote; decision in principle; product reservation; KFI+/ESIS documentation; unconditional offer at point of sale (POS); offer at POS; full mortgage application; and case tracking. The intermediary channel had the highest functionality in all eight areas reviewed by the survey.
More lenders have been investing in their digital offering over the last 12 months, the report revealed, as direct and in-branch video links to mortgage advisers increased over the last 12 months, offering more options to consumers and enabling more direct sales per adviser to be processed.
However, Iress pointed out that lender trends might verge towards using ‘digital assistants’ rather than complete ‘robo-advice’ propositions.
More than 44% of lenders are planning to offer more mobile services next year, while mobile quote and decision in principle at lenders has increased by 185% over the last year, case tracking by 72.2% and full mortgage application by 116.6%.
Henry Woodcock, principal mortgage consultant at Iress, said it was important for the whole mortgage supply chain to embrace digitisation in order to efficiently speed up the entire mortgage process.
“More lenders are enabling valuers to instruct the valuation into a portable device which then returns back to the lender electronically. However, only half the lenders in the survey have that digital connection.
“Equally, lenders are also offering conveyancers the ability to log into the lender’s website and action the task online. Most of the time the lender gets a fax and then has to rekey that information into their system with the possibility or making errors which all takes time, so this is a welcome move.”
Peter Williams, executive director of IMLA, added: “There is still a way to go to digitise the mortgage market – most mobile services are offered by less than half of lenders – but it is encouraging that many of the lenders surveyed are planning to roll out further digital innovations. It is almost inevitable that consumer and broker demands will run ahead of what lenders are doing but we can now see real progress coming through and the momentum is building up.”
18 lenders participated in Iress’s 2016 survey, they are:
- Aldermore
- BM Solutions
- Cambridge Building Society
- Clydesdale Bank
- Co-operative Banking Group
- Coventry Building Society
- Halifax
- Hinckley & Rugby Building Society
- Leeds Building Society
- Nationwide Building Society Group
- Nottingham Building Society
- One Savings Bank
- Royal Bank of Scotland
- Santander
- Scottish Widows Bank
- Tesco Bank
- West Bromwich Building Society
- YBS Group
