The lender, M:Qube, has secured £5m in seed funding and partnered with selected financial institutions for debt capital to back “a broad range of competitive products,” it said.
The business has been set up by intermediary specialist and former regional chief executive of Lloyds Bank Asia, Stuart Cheetham (pictured, left), and Richard Fitch (right), formerly of HBOS and Credit Agricole and experienced in data and analytics.
The duo has developed a technology platform they claim will automate the entire mortgage application process “using data, deep learning and sophisticated technology”.
The firm said the platform can analyse “five to seven times more data than traditional lenders,” enabling it to handle simple and complex cases better and supporting “data-rich underwriting decisions within minutes”.
The technology enabled it to provide tailored products catering to each applicant’s specific needs, the company said.
The mortgage offers will be legally binding — leapfrogging the decision-in-principle stage. The lender believed this would support buyers to negotiate discounts in the same way as a cash buyer.
“Where currently many cases are denied because lenders lack the operational capacity to review each borrower in detail, we have re-engineered the application process to support truly personalised lending decisions,” it said.
Broker exclusive
M:Qube mortgages will be available exclusively through intermediaries.
The platform lets brokers verify the accuracy of customer data before submitting applications preventing delays.
The lender’s process was expected to enhance certainty about outcomes with near real-time decision making and to cut the administration required to submit an application to “a fraction” of a broker’s normal workload.
For investors, the company said it could deploy capital into the mortgage market faster and with lower risk owing to “the robustness of the data-led underwriting process.”
“We want to help more people to get a mortgage that suits them, whether buying a home or investing as a landlord,” said Cheetham.
“Huge swathes of the UK population can afford rent but are unable to get a loan to buy — this is just one example of the problems we want to solve.
“Current solutions are antiquated and don’t offer the flexibility consumers are accustomed to in other sectors,” he said.
Cheetham added that the mortgage market is one of very few sectors in which consumers are yet to benefit from advances in technology.
“We’ve built a platform that will deliver better outcomes for borrowers and intermediaries and improve returns for banks, building societies and institutional investors,” he continued.
Investors’ view
Miles Kirby, managing director at the lead investor AV8 Ventures, said: “M:Qube is outstanding and will help many people who are currently struggling to finance purchase of a property. The technology it’s built on is unique and will transform the way mortgages are done.”
The other investors included IQ Capital and JamJar Investments in an over-subscribed round of funding.
Max Bautin, managing partner at IQ Capital, said: “The mortgage industry has remained largely untouched by innovation and no recent market entrants has introduced disruptive products or scaled to a noticeable size.
“M:Qube is applying specific deep technologies to a commercial problem and we believe it has potential for global scale.”
