Roland McCormack (pictured), head of intermediaries at Barclays, said “virtually all our growth in mortgages is going to come through brokers”, adding that the bank was “absolutely committed to the broker channel”.
He noted that Barclays wanted to be the “broker number one for choice”, so “when brokers are thinking about their customers, whether it be first-time buyers, homemovers, etc, they’re looking to use us”.
McCormack said its investment over the last 18 months had shown its commitment to the broker market, with one example including launching a new mortgage application system.
This has improved application times from 45-50 minutes to 15 minutes, with the record application time being three minutes 40 seconds.
“It’s a very intuitive system, so it only presents questions to the broker that actually [are] relevant to that customer, so it’s a real step-change in the way we do things,” he said.
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McCormack added that Barclays’ application to offer currently stood at 8-9 days, which he said was “really competitive”.
AVMs, live chat, Scotland and new-build team were key areas of focus in 2025
McCormack said a key area of focus was improving processes, noting that it was the “biggest user” of automatic valuation models (AVMs) in the mortgage market, with over half of its valuations going down the AVM route.
This would take around 5-7 days out of the process and give the customer more certainty, along with the broker, vendor and estate agent.
Another area that the bank focused on was live chat – with the average time to answer being three seconds and a transcript given to brokers so they can provide an audit trail, McCormack said.
He said the live chat had a rating from brokers of 4.9 out of five, and this was based on thousands or tens of thousands of responses, as at the end of the conversation, everyone is asked to give the live chat a score.
Barclays also launched a Scottish team last year based in Glasgow who take pre-application enquiries all the way through to completion.
The bank has also invested in the high-value market, so for loans above £700,000, brokers now have to have an underwriter pre-application, allowing them to “talk to the decision-maker, and then that team will track that application all the way through to completion”.
Another area of focus was new build, with McCormack saying that, depending on measurement, it was the number one or two in the new-build market.
“That starts with our dedicated team, so… from pre-application and initial inquiry right the way through to completion is done by one team who are experts in new build and understand… the pressure the brokers [are] under to get that offer out quickly,” he said.
McCormack added that it had gone up to 95% loan to value (LTV) for new build and was the first lender to launch with Rezide, a shared equity loan scheme with leading housebuilders Barratt Redrow and Persimmon and Ahauz and QSix to help prospective buyers purchase new builds with reduced upfront investment.
The lender also boosted affordability and increased income multiples across different schemes and segments.
McCormack added that its broker NPS score is now 55-plus, which is the highest it’s ever been in Barclays since it started measuring it.
FTBs will be key area of focus in 2026
Looking ahead to 2026, McCormack said an area of focus would be around “simplification”.
“Having the [new mortgage application] system is great, and it’s brought us a long way, but now it gives us a platform to start using data to be much more responsive to brokers.
“We’re not thinking that it’s about going from eight days to seven days [for the application to offer time]. We’re thinking about a step-change, and we’ll share more about that in due course,” he said.
McCormack noted that Barclays would “continue to use and increase the use of AVMS and other means of using data to value property”.
It would also be looking at extending the mortgage application system to product transfers.
“We’re going to continue to invest and innovate in all the markets I mentioned before, with a particular emphasis on first-time buyer[s], because the next two or three years feels like it’s going to be all about first-time buyers.
“The Mortgage Boost product we have, where you can use income to sort of family income to support the purchase, we are the market leader, and we’ve got some enhancements coming, probably in quarter one, but it will be another step-change in that proposition,” McCormack said.
