Mortgage broker tech - your views wanted

A mortgage advisor has a myriad of technological solutions to choose from and ensuring that the tech is adding real value to the advisor is only really known once it is being used. Many of the solutions focus on the advisor and sales process promising to reduce duplication, speed up the sales time and ultimately productivity. There is nothing wrong with that as the mortgage application process can be complicated and has many touch points throughout. A more efficient advisor is a good thing for the client but the reality is that the technology is more often aimed at the broker and making their lives better and not necessarily the customer. Putting the client at the centre and building technology around that is really enhancing the customer experience. Dashly has this very much at the forefront and enables both the customer and advisor to be aware of any money saving opportunities. The customer benefits by not unnecessarily paying too much for their mortgage, the broker benefits with additional revenue opportunities and a far more loyal customer base.

Tech in the mortgage market is a double edged sword. I'm not a huge fan of apps and platforms that look to remove the broker from the client journey - I'm a firm believer that a professional adviser adds a lot to the clients overall experience and they get better results. We only have to look at the car insurance and, to a lesser degree, the home insurance market to see how technology taking away the broker has resulted in a "cheapest is best" view of the market, promoting poor outcomes for clients and a "race to the bottom" in terms of cover levels from insurers trying to maintain competitively priced. Where I am a huge fan of technology is in helping broker research and deliver better outcomes for clients. Systems such as Criteria Brain and Affordability Brain have been fantastic additions to the broker tool box, enabling us to help more people, more swiftly and with more robust data to back up our research - meaning more people getting the correct product for them, more quickly. This increase in efficiency is one of the reasons, despite some massive increases in the cost of regulation, we haven't seen a corresponding increase in cost of providing advice to clients. Once has helped to offset the other.

In our industry, and in fact most aspects of our lives, there's always a new piece of Tech that people are telling us we need. Most of the time this is just something shiny with a monthly sub. However, I wouldn't be without Knowledge Bank or Mortgage Broker tools as systems I regularly use, but the really good Technology is coming. With the integration of Credit checking tools like Experian and open banking on the horizon.

"The tool that saves us the most time is the Affordability Brain from Criteria Hub. Rather than having to fill in the affordability calculator with every lender, we just fill it in once on Affordability Brain and it pulls in the results from every lender. This has saved us many hours of time when working with clients whose affordability is tight."