With the continuing array of different mortgage types and options, and with the market changing rapidly over recent months, many consumers are finding the process of selecting the right one difficult and stressful.
It’s a big financial decision with long-term consequences. So they need all the help they can get, and they want to spend quality time with their broker to ensure that they’re getting the best arrangement to meet their needs, as well as the best deal.
Unfortunately in the current environment this is not necessarily an option Ten years ago, mortgage brokers used to be able to spend 90% of their time face-to-face with customers.
Today, partly due to an increase in compliance and administration regulations, that figure has reduced to around 55%. So with increasing competition in the industry, brokers are squeezed between needing to spend more time with clients, and coping with a growing volume of paperwork.
Another reality is that the financial services market has been relatively slow to apply new technology. 99% of the mortgage industry still uses traditional pen and paper at some point in the process. Many brokers continue to sit with the client, write out a fact-find form, return to the office, type it up, produce a decision in principle form, re-key the fact-find information into the lender’s system – then wait for approval. All of this adds up to time-consuming, duplicated work and effort – especially since mortgage brokers may not always be the world’s fastest typists.
Some have tried out electronic devices such as PDAs, hand-held computers and laptops. While these may have their place, they have their drawbacks too. Not least of these is that they can actually add complexity and slow things down – especially if the screen and keyboard are small and fiddly. They can also create a barrier to natural dialogue with the client. Most problematic of all, there’s often no way of leaving a printed record with the client.
So if paper systems have had their day, and portable computers don’t yet offer a complete solution, what’s the answer?
Strangely enough, it can be pen and paper. But a pen with a difference – one with a tiny infra-red camera in the nib that can take a hundred pictures per second of pen strokes, and convert them into digital data. The paper used with these pens are forms forms that are pre-digitised with a unique dot matrix pattern.
A Bluetooth or Internet connection enables the user to transmit back to base from the pen as it writes and automated conversion into a data file that can be seamlessly integrated into a back-office system in real time for up-to-the-minute customer information.
This type of pioneering digital pen technology, which is already available, is estimated by Connect Mortgage Group – a dedicated outsource processing company for mortgage brokers, to increase brokers’ sales potential by up to 40%, spending as little as 5% of their time away from selling.
The first breakthrough in the birth of these systems was the consolidation of forty different lenders’ forms into a single generic document which they would all accept. The various forms involved were redesigned and converted into user-friendly digitised documents. The main one of these is the combined sixteen page fact-find and mortgage application form, suitable for all lenders. Other digitised documents include the DIP form, a mortgage transfer form, branded notebooks for general notes, and a business review form to help managers track and analyse the business they’re handling.
Connect ran tests issuing forms and digital pens, supplied by Destiny to a core group of around two hundred brokers. Luckily little or no training is involved.
The impact on broker efficiency and customer service was immediate. Now, they simply use a digital pen to complete the fact-find / mortgage application form with the client, and dock the pen to a port on their laptop. An automatic router creates an Internet connection and transmits the form as a graphical image to the home system. Some brokers use Bluetooth phones to transit the form. Either way, the process takes just a few seconds.
The system can be geared up for rapid response – making contact with the selected lender, gaining rapid approval, and getting back to the broker fast. The present state of evolution has this happening within fifteen minutes. This means that the broker will be able to stay with the client and confirm go-ahead with almost no delay.
Tony Webster, CEO of the Connect Mortgage Group, says: “We get the mortgage application form a minute after it’s completed. We send confirmation back to the broker within five minutes after that. A positive response normally follows pretty quickly. That’s a great image in front of customers. And the best thing about it is that it’s so simple. It is just a pen. It is straightforward.”
While this sort of system is unlikely to be the final stage in the march of broker’s technology as it is likely to be emulated across the financial intermediary market. Its ability to save time, while being more secure as there is no risk of confidential documents getting lost in the post, perhaps obscures this concepts main strength- the automatic creation of fully compliant records capable of backing up brokers over Treating Customers Fairly and any other regulatory issues.
