Andrew Montlake, director at Coreco, said his firm was already using video calling services such as Skype and Facetime to interact with clients, but sees the benefit in technology that takes interviews a step further and enables brokers to share documentation at the same time.
He said: “Any positive technology change like this is likely to lead to an increase in business because you’re opening yourself up to another pool of clients who will want to deal with you.”
However, respondents to a Mortgage Solutions online poll appeared divided over the use of screen sharing, with half of readers saying they were not interested in the technology. Just one firm said they had these capabilities already up and running, while 12% said they had tried the technology but found it was not right for their business. A further 38% said they would be interested in using video calling to provide advice to clients.
Montlake agreed that take-up of such technology among intermediaries would depend on brokers’ scope of service.
“If you are a small broker and working on a face-to-face service or referral chains, then the amount of business you do and how that’s carried out may not warrant introducing such changes. But sooner or later it’s going to be the case that the client will dictate how they want to do business, particularly among the next generation of borrowers.
“I think that screen sharing technology will evolve. It’s probably not as affordable as it could be for a lot of brokers but it’s definitely something we will consider if the right options become available.”
Richard Hurst, marketing director at Vizolution, noted the compliance benefits to brokers when using screen sharing technology.
“Everything is time and date stamped, so from a compliance point of view, brokers have a record of all communication between themselves and the client,” he said.
“We see many examples where clients of brokers cannot do physical, face-to-face interviews for one reason or another, and this allows advisers to serve a far wider audience and at times that suit them.”
