Speaking at an event about the future of mortgage technology in conjunction with Nationwide, Conor Murphy (pictured), chief executive and founder of Smartr365, said the platform currently had 3,500 broker users and the aim was to expand that to 6,000 by the end of the year.
“We’re currently around 15 per cent and our expectation would be that we’re around 30 per cent by the end of the year, in terms of brokers on our platform.”
Murphy said it would “shortly be at 62 per cent lender coverage by volume of application” as it had “another major integration going live soon”.
Smartr365’s API is currently integrated with the likes of Halifax, TSB and Aldermore. Its most recent partnership was with Nationwide.
Murphy added: “Two thirds of the business brokers do moving forward would be automated in that fashion via the platform.”
This follows the announcement of Smartr365’s launch with Experian Open Banking which enables users of its platform to access Open Banking statements.
This has been approved by HSBC and Nationwide. Murphy said it was the Open Banking service which had been approved for mortgage intermediaries and he said the firm believed it would stay that way if not forever, then a long time.
Murphy said the days of “having to see clients face-to-face to collect credit reports and bank statements then look through those then stamp and certify those documents are over”.
Further launch this year
Murphy said there was another service which was set to launch this year, called Work Report.
“It effectively allows us to pull through payslips straight into the application in the same way we pull through bank statements. And it cover roughly 60 per cent of the PAYE applicants in the UK.”
This is another function which has been enabled by Experian and the company spoke to payroll providers to capture the data at source. Murphy said this would be produced in a “uniform fashion” so that all the reports would look the same.
“We’re working with lenders already to plan for the roll out of this service towards the end of the year,” he added.
He said this along with Open Banking and the credit report service would be all the major elements a lender needs to make a decision.
He added: “In terms of friction throughout the process, this will be another game changer because it removes the client-side friction. In terms of having to retrieve stamp certified documents to send to the lender, and likewise from a lender’s perspective it’ll remove friction on their side from having to do the same.”
He said it would also lessen fraud as the data is collected at source and less likely to be tampered with.
Murphy said this was moving towards what Smartr365 thought the future of the market looked like.
Broker at the centre
Murphy said Smartr365 was aiming to deliver all the right products and services at different levels for brokers, whether they were directly authorised or appointed representatives.
“We’re very focused on the adviser. What does the adviser need? What does the client need? How can you make that journey as smooth and efficient as possible?”
He said working with networks and clubs allowed the market to “move at scale”.
Murphy said once Smartr365 grew its lender base to cover 62 per cent of the market, that would be the tipping point for brokers to work with automated processes.
He added: “Brokers will start to look for the automated option and not the manual option.”
Murphy said the latest stats suggested that around 90 per cent of mortgages will come through intermediaries in around 18 months’ time.
He added: “We have a real belief in the adviser, we’ve always believed in the adviser. People in the industry will remember that four or five years ago, there was lots of noise about ‘robo-advice’. They said it would all go robo and there would be no advisers – we never believed that.
“The regulatory position makes it impossible, we believe the industry is very effective already, customers tend to get good outcomes. What we focus on is the paperwork and the lost time and effort in the middle. Our objective is to empower the adviser.”
