Mortgage professionals believe industry needs to embrace Fintech

A large percentage of mortgage experts believe that their industry is failing to adapt to technological advances whilst other financial sectors are embracing changes.

According to research conducted by EDM Mortgage Support Services, as many as 39 per cent of specialists quizzed said they felt the industry could still do more.

Perhaps the most startling revelation the research shows is that, at 39 per cent, the percentage of experts who feel the industry could do more to embrace technology is more than double the percentage who feel the industry is doing well in this regard.

In all, 83 per ent of mortgage professionals asked said they believed that technology will prove to be a significant contributor towards improvements within the market.

Commenting on the data, Joe Pepper, Managing Director at EDM MSS said: “Our research shows mortgage professionals have little confidence in the technology used in their industry.

“Lenders will have to drive improvements and the main development they would like to see is more sharing of information to speed up the process, such as mortgage brokers and other intermediaries getting key documentation into lenders’ contact centres in real-time and streamlining the communication process between parties.

“It is a goal that EDM MSS is working hard to achieve already through products such as EDM PRISM.”  

The findings are announced in the wake of recent improvements to industry prospects with last autumn’s stamp duty reforms proving to be pivotal.

Despite the Council for Mortgage Lending revealing that gross mortgage lending in February was down 9 per cent both on the month and versus February 2014, EDM MSS deemed that the underlying picture was that things were improving and figures should pick up towards the end of the year.