The later life lending platform said that the changes were in response to inflation increases and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, which had put heightened financial pressure on borrowers and affordability.
It continued on to say that the changes would “place affordability at the heart of the advice process” and help advisers meet Consumer Duty requirements.
The platform will now have filtered search terms, so advisers can set payment limits, payment terms, and select which products their clients will be interested in before they search.
There is an updated results page with a new column entitled ‘payments’, which will show the monthly payment required with icons for products with contracted payments and the payment term.
The firm has added a borrowing forecast tool, which has a product breakdown using the client’s monthly budget and the impact of the overall cost of borrowing.
New features will ‘make it easier for advisers’
Paul Glynn (pictured), CEO of Air Group, said: “The past year, filled with economic uncertainty, inflation, and rising living costs, has been particularly hard for many borrowers. This, coupled with new Consumer Duty regulation, has made it more important than ever that advisers are well-prepared to support customers in maximising the benefit of payments they can commit to in order to reduce lifetime borrowing costs.
“The newly introduced features to Air Sourcing will make it easier for advisers to search for and evaluate different products in line with payment levels available. In particular, our filtered search terms will consider new solutions coming to the market with committed payments alongside traditional full roll-up products.”
He added: “Unique in its market offering, Air Sourcing’s ability to sift data to maximise the use of customer affordability continues to yield surprising and innovative approaches to later life lending that make the most advantage of newer products that have recently joined the market, opening up opportunities for comprehensive conversations between advisers and clients around affordability.
“Not only will this help advisers meet industry standards and better cater to their customers’ financial needs, but it will also save them time, which can be spent having the meaningful conversations that clients require when discussing their borrowing options.”
Earlier this year, Air launched its Comprehensive Conversations manifesto, which aims to raise awareness of a “new demographic of customers” and has more than 70 signatories.
