Twenty7Tec surely needs little introduction. Founded in 2014, the name has since become synonymous with technology in the mortgage market.

As well as developing platforms and various modules to help lenders and brokers connect with each other, the firm regularly issues data releases, helping market watchers form an unalloyed view of what can often be a turbulent and confusing space.

Mortgage Strategy sat down with chief executive James Tucker and director of customer relationships Nathan Reilly to dig into what makes Twenty7Tec tick today and where it might end up tomorrow.

The past

Tucker says there were three key areas he and his fellow founders wanted to tackle: sourcing, straight-through processing (allowing a dataset to be used across an entire process without any manual intervention) and data analysis. Specifically, existing sourcing engines were “fairly high level in the way they drilled down to product details…. What we set out to do was build a more accurate engine”.

There are mixed views as to whether chatbots are a good thing or a bad thing in this space

For straight-through processing, Tucker and his team believed there were efficiencies to be gained in enabling client data to be keyed in only once and reused in multiple ways.

And, in terms of data analysis, he says: “We felt the use of data throughout the whole process — with regard to what advisers are searching for, what demand is in the market, and how lenders can use this information to target product ranges — was not really at the standard we expected.”

Tucker regards the Twenty7Tec suite, as it stands today, as matching his initial aims on a technical basis, but says he was expecting adoption of the APPLY module, which connects brokers and consumer websites to lenders for decisions in principle and application submission, to move more quickly.

“We expected — perhaps naively — that advisers would see the benefit and the opportunity in using the technology to make themselves more efficient, and ultimately drive themselves to adopt it,” he says.

We make a point of getting all of our staff together on a regular basis

“We’ve spent a lot more time training advisers and helping them understand the benefits than we expected to — and it’s still a process we’re going through.”

Tucker believes this is partly due to the “exceptional” workload brokers have found themselves dealing with recently, with Reilly naming resistance to technology as another driver.

Some brokers, Reilly says, are worried that technology removes the human touch from the advice process, or will replace them entirely.

“In reality,” he says, “that won’t happen…. It [instead] makes you more efficient and gives you more time to engage your clients where you want or need to.”

Another obstacle the firm encountered during its nascent years was the size and complexity of the UK mortgage market.

Sourcing systems need to be more agile and implement changes sooner

Tucker explains: “The kind of technology we’re using to build decision engines and sourcing and connectivity through APIs [application programming interfaces] is not rocket science by any means.

“What has been challenging is… connecting and working with so many businesses of different sizes, with many of those businesses having very embedded process legacy technology solutions.”

Tucker points to partnerships with Connells, LSL and Mortgage Advice Bureau as being especially useful in helping Twenty7Tec to understand the market and the firms that make it up.

The present

Our discussion moves on to the subject of today’s market from Twenty7Tec’s perspective. Predictably, the volume of product changes quickly comes up as a point of interest.

“There is maybe an assumption from some people that technology does all the heavy lifting when it comes to maintaining our product and sourcing,” says Reilly.

We felt the use of data throughout the whole process was not really at the standard we expected

“In reality, we have a team of dedicated people manually keying in product and criteria changes, day in, day out.”

Constant communication with lenders is required, but Reilly says the firm is also exploring technical solutions to this problem.

“We’ve realised that the market is moving into a new pattern, where sourcing systems need to be more agile and need to be able to implement changes sooner.”

It’s a two-way conversation with lenders, he reveals. It’s no use creating a system that won’t hook up to a lender’s technology.

“I’ve been engaging with lenders on this for the past 12 months,” says Reilly. “It’s something a number of lenders are looking at, but it’s just a case of speed.

“There are always a number of priorities that lenders are considering, and it’s where this fits in that list…. It’s down to us and our partners to say this needs to be near the top, because this situation isn’t going away soon.”

The market is very disparate in terms of tech and tech providers, and I think that will consolidate

In June this year, Twenty7Tec acquired Bluecoat Software, developer of FinPlan, a financial adviser platform. Tucker says there were two reasons for this move.

“The first is that, prior to the acquisition, we had sourcing and application submission in place but we didn’t own a customer relationship management [CRM]solution. We therefore partnered with a lot of third-party providers who supplied that system to our customers.

“We ended up concluding that we should deliver that whole end-to-end solution ourselves — if we could find a CRM solution that we could either build or buy to plug in to our own technology.

“We’ll continue to work with our third-party partners, but for some of our customers we wanted to be able to deliver that end-to-end solution ourselves.

The second reason for the acquisition was the opportunity to move Twenty7Tec into the wealth market, which bears many similarities to the mortgage space. The “exceptionally stressful” process took a year but Tucker says he’s up for making more deals.

We have a team of dedicated people manually keying in product and criteria changes, day in, day out

“The market is very disparate in terms of tech and tech providers, and I think that will consolidate. We’d like to be one of the businesses that is able to bring other tech firms into our group, plug them all together, and create a really good end-to-end solution across both mortgages and wealth.”

Twenty7Tec’s head office is based in sometimes-sunny Bournemouth but has a global footprint. As well as hiring remote workers based in Scotland and the English Midlands, the company boasts a team in Toronto. This Canadian interest has existed since the beginning, with fourth-ever employee chief technology officer Paul Motley being based there.

Tucker says: “We set the original IT team in Toronto, and we’ve since built and scaled a team, which means, from a working-hours perspective, our IT team is working 18 hours out of a 24-hour day.”

What has been challenging is… working with so many businesses of different sizes, with many of them having very embedded process legacy technology solutions

Tucker reports that the Toronto-based employees inevitably gain a deep knowledge of the UK market, and that in fact many people he recruits join specifically because they find the market here so exciting.

“We make a point of getting all of our staff together on a regular basis,” Tucker adds.

“A couple of weeks ago we had our team from Canada fly over. Everybody else from the rest of the country came down to Bournemouth too and we spent a week together. That element of the company culture is still really important to us, but there’s no limit as to geography and time zones. We’ll do whatever’s right for the business.”

The future

What challenges is the management at Twenty7Tec eyeing up next? Tucker has no hesitation in laying out his plans.

“There’s still a massive duplication of effort in this market for both advisers and lenders. That can end in customers receiving a poor outcome.

“For example, ID verification seems to continuously need doing twice. Income verification, twice — for both advisers and lenders. And Open Banking data can be pulled by an adviser, only to be pulled again by the lender.

There’s still a massive duplication of effort in this market

“All of this can be done through technology and it can be verified only once. But we’re still not at the point where advisers, lenders and tech providers have agreed on a process through which that could work.

“To me that is a very obvious place to focus on.”

Reilly adds: “We still hear from lenders that they receive a huge amount of calls on quite simple stuff, such as criteria and products. Maybe some of that is because the adviser feels more comfortable picking up the phone. Or maybe some of it is down to the fact that they don’t trust the system.

“Some of this lack of trust might stem from the lenders not publicising their approach to every piece of criteria, or the ins and outs of their product range. Getting lenders to share that information with us, so we can ensure our systems are completely reflective of their approach, will help remove some of that traffic.”

Tucker says: “We made an investment in a company called Meet Parker about 18 months ago. One of the things they are focused on is chatbot technology, which they’re looking to provide to lenders to try and deal with some of these fairly basic queries.

Tech makes you more efficient and gives more time to engage your clients

“It will be interesting to see how that evolves. There are mixed views as to whether chatbots are a good thing or a bad thing in this space. But given the volume of calls lenders receive, they and we have got to look at technology to try and find a way to resolve some of the obvious questions, and make sure their staff are only dealing with cases where intervention on a personal level is needed.”

Both Reilly and Tucker provide refreshingly clear-eyed, direct and jargon-free answers to the many questions sprayed their way.

In this they represent a company that, from the outside at least, appears to be navigating a difficult environment with confidence and a clear vision of where it wants to end up.