A number of brokers took to Twitter to complain that they were being held in an online queue of more than 1,000 intermediaries, with estimated wait times of up to an hour.
This occurred ahead of some rate reductions made by the lender today.
Matthew Gamble, principal of brokerage Mortgage Solutions, said the delay was “frustrating” as it meant he needed to sit and monitor the page to make sure he did not miss the notification allowing him to login, as missing it sent him to the back of the queue again.
He said it was disrupting the time he had to complete admin work in between meetings with clients.
Gamble added: “If it was just an hour, okay, I could probably manage that. But I’ve got many tabs open and I’m doing other applications. Then, I’m at the front of the queue there’s a little beep but I might go out to make a cup of tea, stretch my legs, come back and see I’ve missed my slot.
“So then it becomes two hours and that’s not really an efficient way to run business. I’ll manage it and the client’s application will get submitted but if everyone had the same standard, everything would grind to a halt.”
He also said it made doing simple tasks such as uploading a document take longer.
Phil Leivesley, sales manager at MB Associates, said at one point, he was in a queue for the lender’s platform with 1,649 people ahead of him and estimated wait times of 20 to 50 minutes.
He said there were probably brokers in the queue who did not immediately need to use the service, but were waiting just in case.
“They’ve created a bit of a problem for themselves, it’s probably just a bit of an unintended consequence.”
Both brokers praised HSBC for their usual service and product offering with Gamble saying he “really liked” using the bank because of its time to offer and effective desktop valuations. Leivesley said he liked to support lenders and be positive, adding that this was likely a case of “poor execution”.
A spokesperson for HSBC UK said: “We know that our mortgage partners look at keenly-priced mortgage rates as part of finding their customers the right mortgage for them, and yesterday, as we announced our need to change rates, we saw increased system access wait times at peak times due to our extremely competitive rates, products and services.
“We extended the period of acceptance for yesterday’s rates to midnight Wednesday to support our brokers in a positive step to support further against this peak in demand.”
The spokesperson added: “System access times have returned to normal levels today. Our phone lines have not been impacted by this peak in work and our normal high standard of service is being provided.”
