The tool gives the mortgage industry instant data regarding what mortgages brokers are searching for.
The new product, Knowledge Insights, will provide lenders with a realistic overview of what areas of lending criteria are the most popular and the most required.
Currently, the only data available to lenders is product based and is historical, formed from completions that may have happened two to three months prior to a report becoming available.
Knowledge Insights will enable the whole of the mortgage market to better understand trends both as they are occurring and retrospectively, based not just on product or lending amount but the actual needs of borrowers as shown up by brokers’ searches for criteria.
It will enable lenders to develop product and policy where they can see that there is a proven demand for it as well as to understand their own propositions better and see where they may be missing out on business.
The company said that lenders will be able to see where there is demand for policy or criteria that may well be a unique selling point for them and quickly tap into that market where they have funds available.
Knowledge Bank has also agreed to share all of its insights data with the FCA. The data will also be made available to other trade bodies requesting it.
Nicola Firth, CEO of Knowledge Bank (pictured), said that data analysis is vitally important to mortgage lenders to enable them to constantly review their product offering and the criteria that sits behind their lending decisions.
She said: “As most often now, criteria is the key driver now as opposed to the rate in terms of which lender the case will be placed with.
“We believe that Knowledge Insights will transform the market and the way that lenders develop products and policy, providing a level of insight that has never before been available.”
