The Bath-based broker has been testing the system for some time with hundreds of people going through it.
The service will conduct a full fact find of the customer and make a recommendation of suitable products at the end, although customer can hop-out at any time and continue with a phone call.
L&C Mortgages associate director communications David Hollingworth (pictured) told Mortgage Solutions that while it was possible to go end-to-end through the automated process, it was expected that most customers would seek human advice at some point.
“It will give a recommendation of products that someone can select but there will be a check on the recommendation that we think that’s the right one for the client,” he said.
“That quite often will result in a phone call from an adviser and could mean a different product solution or it could just be to rubber stamp the final decision.
“We will be providing advice, it won’t just be execution-only, it won’t just be using best buy tables, there will be the criteria sitting behind that,” he added.
Human advice desired
Hollingworth stressed that while some clients would go through the fully-automated process, the broker is expecting more to want human advice at some point in their journey.
It sees this move as another step into making its offering accessible through as many sources as possible, rather than a complete change in direction.
Hollingworth added that it expected this would help make advisers’ time more productive by focusing more on providing advice and less on collecting client data.
It should also help speed clients through the mortgage journey as much as possible as lenders continue to adapt their systems for more complete integration.
“We are waiting for lenders to be ready,” he continued.
“We are hoping we can give the experience to customers they would like while dealing with them.”
L&C will begin rolling the service out to its partners in the New Year.
