The platform, which has been piloted among a small group of brokers, will modernise the entire mortgage application process from agreement in principle through to underwriting, valuations, risk assessments and document handling.
Speaking to Specialist Lending Solutions, Jon Hall (pictured), group managing director of mortgages and savings, said it was working with a small number of brokers before its expected full-market launch in the summer, but said feedback so far was “very strong”.
Hall added that the platform would initially be rolled out for buy to let (BTL), with the plan being to bring on commercial and residential later down the line.
As part of the lending platform, OSB Group has built a cloud infrastructure, agreed on data architecture, onboarded a new core banking system, and is integrating tech solutions for “enhanced efficiency and adaptability”.
This includes 14 application programming interfaces (APIs), which allow software applications to communicate with each other to exchange data.
Aldermore Insights with Jon Cooper: Edition 9 – Why lending strategy is becoming more central in buy to let
Sponsored by Aldermore
Hall said as a result, it would take fewer than four minutes for brokers to register on the new platform, with agreement in principle decisions expected to take fewer than 10 minutes.
Hall continued on to say that OSB Group estimated that the new lending platform will eradicate somewhere in the region of 50% of broker input through “intuitive questioning”.
He noted that the speed of decisioning will be enhanced with the “potential for same-day offers”, and that it was updating its valuation process so automatic valuation models (AVMs) and desktop valuations were at the front end of its process.
OSB Group would then operate a triage system, which would then narrow down when a full valuation would be needed.
Hall added that the overall time for processing all applications will be reduced by at least 25%, driven by API integrations, automated verifications and AVM capabilities.
“We estimate that around circa 40% of the decisioning process will be automated and data-led, which allows those more complex cases, which we do really well, to have the focus of the people that when it comes to underwriting.
“So, underwriting will only be deployed, although for kind of complicated situations… that we know are particularly useful,” Hall said.
The post-offer process will also be fully digitised, pointing to an integration with LMS to “simplify that conveyancing experience”.
“What we’re looking to do is to implement a change from a strategic perspective that will allow us to continue to scale efficiently, enhance customer outcomes and sustain our competitive edge.
“We’re transforming the whole experience for OSB; whether you’re a lending customer or a savings customer, we’re rebuilding everything within OSB under our transformation programme, and very much aiming to continue to be the number one specialist lender, but also develop ourselves as a specialist bank as well.
“We really do feel like we’re building the specialist bank of the future. It’s data-led, flexible, scalable, and it’s very much focused on listening to what intermediaries and customers want around self-service, efficiency and automation.
“It is also enabling us to deliver a much more personal service to them and much more personal offerings and making sure that our people are really there in those moments that make a difference,” he said.
OSB Group is also making key changes to its savings technology, with plans to move all its easy access customers from Kent Reliance to the new cloud platform.
The firm is also planning to launch a savings app for Kent Reliance and Charter by the end of this year.
OSB India to receive investment
OSB Group is also evolving its OSB India operation, moving it from a “business process outsourcing hub” to a “global capability centre (GCC)”.
A GCC is a strategic unit that helps an organisation’s operations through “technology, talent and innovation”.
The transition will allow the group to “leverage technology and innovation further”, with a spokesperson for OSB Group saying that OSB India offered a “structured advantage for the group in terms of both access to talent and cost-effectiveness, even more so as we transform”.
Hall said: “We’ve obviously had OSB India in the group for well over a decade of strategic decision and advantage, and we are onboarding a significant amount of technology capability over there, so our goal is to have about 80% of the engineering capability that we will have within the group within OSB India.
“We’re really seeing that it gives us the capability in-house, to continue on this technology journey.”
