A major investment in new technology is being made by a leading commercial lender to bring the commercial application and tracking process up to speed with what is offered in the established residential market.

The commercial lender, Aldermore Bank, has exclusively revealed to B&C that it has been hard at work developing an online system, ‘Acumen’, which will ease a broker’s journey in obtaining a commercial loan by providing easier access to terms and enable 24-hour case tracking.

Commenting on the new Acumen system, Rob Lankey, Managing Director of Aldermore Commercial Mortgages, explained further: “Every broker knows that commercial mortgages are usually more complex than residential deals, which makes obtaining an automated heads of terms a tough challenge. The challenge becomes even tougher if the process is to include the ability to upload supporting documents online and then undertake automated credit, user ID, age, serviceability and lending policy checks before producing an immediate heads of terms, which includes loan pricing. But I’m pleased to say it’s not an impossible challenge.

“Throughout 2012 we’ve been developing a new commercial mortgage system called Acumen. When I say new, I mean precisely that. We haven’t tinkered with our old system; we’ve replaced it lock, stock and barrel and have designed and built Acumen from scratch.

“Although brokers may not realise it, we’ve been using the first phase of Acumen for a few months now and it’s delivering real benefits. Acumen not only speeds up administrative processes, but it also frees up staff to spend more time helping our business partners. Although brokers haven’t yet been able to use our new commercial mortgage broker portal, their feedback is that they have already experienced faster turnaround times whilst at the same time having more interaction with our lending experts.

“The development of our online broker portal is a significant step for Aldermore Commercial Mortgages. We’re soon going to be rolling Acumen out to our broker panel which means brokers will be able to obtain a credit searched and decisioned heads of terms 24/7. This document is not a worthless illustration; it enables brokers to proceed with confidence to the application stage.”