Lofthouse and Tucker both said that the best customer outcomes always come with advice, discussing the impact of sourcing systems on financial advisers as part of the Accord Growth Series, hosted by the lender’s director of intermediaries Jeremy Duncombe (pictured).
The pair also noted that the sourcing system was unlikely to ever become a monopoly.
More products, more complexity
Mark Lofthouse said that given the number of mortgage products has increased from 4,000 to over 13,000 in the last five years, it was exceptionally difficult for brokers to be able to know every proposition that might be suitable for their client.
Sourcing systems enable suitable products to be easily identified, allowing the broker to spend more time understanding their client’s needs.
However, Lofthouse said that when advisers are looking at the technology to support their business, they need to take into account the whole process from the start to the end, as it is not about the product but the whole proposition.
He added: “An individual having a financial passport, which means that an adviser can get the information from the right sources and cracking that, is the biggest thing that is going to improve the quality of advice and customer outcomes.”
However, both agreed that there will not be a massive consolidation of sourcing systems in the near future, but it is more likely to see new entrants coming into the industry, particularly around niche areas.
Google for mortgages
They also discussed the role of application programming interfaces (APIs) and how they influence the client’s journey from enquiry to product purchase.
Moving on to criteria search systems, Lofthouse emphasised that lenders will not lose out when utilising these systems, calling them “Google for mortgages.”
The pair pointed out how these systems can really benefit advisers when it comes to compliance investigations, as many systems can roll back their data to the very day that a specific case occurred.
And both agreed that a compliance officer can see all of the offers available to the broker on the day that the advice was given, helping to add more transparency to the industry.
