The mortgage tech company is currently surveying attendees at its series of Mortgage Vision events, and to date, 81% of those surveyed have not started implementing the new rules and regulations of GDPR.
With just seven months until GDPR comes into effect, attendees across events held in Winchester, London, Manchester and Birmingham were asked if they were aware of the upcoming changes. Overall 35% of respondents said they were not aware of the new rules.
However, the survey illustrated a regional split between awareness: 50% of London respondents said they were not aware of the forthcoming regulations, compared to 34% in Birmingham, 30% in Winchester and 25% in Manchester.
Mark Lofthouse, chief executive officer of Mortgage Brain, said: “May 2018 might seem like a long way off but with GDPR affecting everything from the way customer data is collected, the way consent for use is given and the way data is stored and used, some firms could find they have a lot of work to do to ensure their business is compliant.”
Maximum fines
With the maximum fines for breaching the GDPR being the higher of either 4% of group turnover, or €20m, Lofthouse also stressed the urgency of compliance: “With just seven months to go it’s imperative that advisers have a full and clear understanding of the new rules and regulations and are well aware of their responsibilities and what support they should expect from their system providers.”
Mortgage Brain, the parent company of Mortgage Solutions, announced in October that it was prepared to be fully compliant with GDPR rules.
Intended as a replacement for the data protection directive of 1995, the GDPR is a piece of directly binding EU regulation aiming to strengthen and extend the scope of data protection for EU citizens – both within the European Union itself and the exporting of personal data beyond the EU — and will affect everyone involved in collecting processing information and data about individuals in the context of selling goods and services.
The GDPR will come into force in the UK from 25 May 2018, and the UK government has confirmed that the Brexit negotiations will not affect the commencement of the regulation in the country.
