A mortgage lender panel agreed any competitive threat from data or technology companies eyeing the UK lending market could be countered by the scale and resilience of traditional lenders.
At Legal and General’s Mortgage Club Live event today, Mike Jones, director of intermediaries and managing director of Scottish Widows Bank, said Lloyds Banking Group had “scale, competence and resilience” on its side, even if what it didn’t have was the ability to be “fleet of foot” due to legacy systems.
NatWest’s head of intermediary mortgages Graham Felstead agreed with the other lenders that legacy systems are a “problem” but confirmed the bank is building a new broker-facing system.
Tony Fulbrook, head of purchase, mortgages at Barclays said its business would benefit from economies of scale across product sectors and idea-sharing among big technical teams.
Deeper pockets
Fulbrook added that the sheer pace of digital change is inevitably also a problem for the disruptors as well as more traditional lenders.
“With new entrants, their systems could quickly become obsolete and they will also have to run to keep up.”
Miguel Sard, MD, mortgage division at Santander said the bank “has deeper pockets” and can invest further in its own systems, which had also already been tried and tested by the regulator.
However, the uncertainties brought by Brexit made the future and growth trajectories hard to predict.
He added: “But, until we know what Brexit is, it’s hard to predict what the true impact will be.”
Victoria Hartley is contributing editor at Mortgage Solutions, Specialist Lending Solutions, Your Money and Your Mortgage at London-based publishing company AE3 Media.
She has an MA in Radio from Goldsmiths after gaining a 2:1 in a Comparative American Studies BA at Warwick University. She also holds a TEFL qualification and taught overseas in Mexico and Japan from 1994 to 1997.
Her role includes editorial oversight of the news, analysis and features, event content management and strategic and editorial consultancy for the AE3 Media group. She is an experienced video, broadcast and live-event host and regularly chairs web and podcast debates and interviews.
Multiple award nominations have resulted in two wins: Santander Media Awards, trade journalist of the year and Headlinemoney Awards, mortgage journalist of the year (B2B). Here is one of the award-winning pieces: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/exclusive-tale-bailey-fraud-witness/
Previous roles include editorships of Mortgage Solutions, consumer title What Mortgage and trade title Credit Today as well as a stint freelancing for a variety of outlets including The Guardian and Which? Money.
