Question
Paul Glantz, of Chesterton Grant Mortgages
Why on earth does Accord Mortgages still insist on using the Little Britain “computer says no” approach to underwriting?
I recently tried to place a first-time buyer deal with it. The clients are both police officers earning more than £30,000 a year and with excellent credit scores, who wanted to borrow some several thousand pounds less than Accord’s affordability calculator said they could have. Then we were told that the “computer says no”.
When this was questioned, Accord stated the case does not come within its unique form of credit scoring. However, the computer will not let us know why the couple have failed.
I want to know how, in this age of treating the customer fairly, can Accord be allowed to get away with this?
Accord responds
Every lender operates its own unique credit scoring system. This is typically based on a combination of information from credit scoring agencies, such as Equifax or Experian, as well as characteristics of the loan itself.
These scoring systems are typically built using a mixture of market data as well as the lender’s own historical information.
The case in question failed to pass Accord’s credit score at AIP stage. As the credit score takes into account several factors, it is not possible to pinpoint one specific attribute that would cause failure.
As the case failed at AIP, the customer had to pay no booking fee and, as Accord operates a soft footprint at this stage, there will be no detrimental impact on the customer’s credit score.
