Technology has played a dominant role in UK’s mortgage origination. It has automated most of the processes and has made the entire system more efficient. But this does not mean technology has eliminated the necessity of human intervention in the process.

Mortgages play an essential role in the UK lending market. Whether the borrower wants to purchase a house or start a business, mortgages provide the necessary financial assistance. In 2020, even with the pandemic and lockdowns, the total number of mortgages sold in the UK was over one million.

While technology has made mortgage origination more streamlined for lenders and borrowers, the human touch is still required. Over the next few minutes, you will learn how technology can change mortgage origination so that the focus shifts to human relationships.

Automation + Human Relationship  Let’s break this down into two segments.

How is automation helping mortgage lending? 

There are four main steps in the mortgage origination process.

1. Application
2. Underwriting
3. Completion
4. Funding

Each step consists of several detailed processes. In the traditional mortgage origination process,

• The case handler extracts all the information from the documents.
• The lender checks if all the information is complete.
• The underwriter verifies all the information, calculates the borrower’s financial stability and creditworthiness, and makes lending decisions.

The time to complete all these steps and fund the money to the borrower takes around 35 days. This lengthy period is due to manual operations, which also causes errors during the process. These errors then lead to a few back-and-forth between the lender and borrower.

On the other hand, in the modern mortgage origination system that involves automation and digitisation:

• Borrowers can digitally send their applications and documents.
• Lenders and case handlers can leverage technology to,
  • Check if the data is correct and complete
  • Extract data from documents
  • Classify them based on their type.
• Underwriters can verify the borrower’s income and employment details directly with the bank and employer.
• Underwriters can use high-end analytics to make better lending decisions

The benefits?

• Happier borrowers due to digital applications
• More first-time-right applications and closed loans
• Faster time to fund
• Reduced operating costs

Then, what about the human relationship? 

Automation through technology is just a set of tools that assists you in different lending stages. Along with automation, human relationship and presence are also essential for successful mortgage lending.

As seen above, in the modern mortgage origination system, the lenders or underwriters always make the final decisions. Lenders can also help borrowers choose the right mortgage product based on their financial history.

Furthermore, customer service and support are vital for any business. Be it in eCommerce, healthcare, or mortgage origination, customer support is what helps a business grow and develop a reputation.

So, when modern-day technologies speed up different processes for you, you get more time to create and develop a professional relationship with the borrower. This way, you can better understand the borrower’s situation.

For instance, the data received from bank statements and payslips are not always complete or data rich. In such scenarios, a human presence is beneficial as lenders can try and understand the borrower’s financial situation.

Moreover, borrowers always feel more comfortable asking financial questions to a real person rather than a computerized system.

Did you know that 70% of consumers still prefer human interaction and assistance to a digital representative or chatbot

This statistic holds for all sectors, including banking and finance.

Hence, only when you embrace and work with technology, you create a successful mortgage origination system.

Digilytics AI is a fintech company that leverages disruptive technology to enhance the mortgage origination experience. With the help of RevEL, our loan origination software, we aim at revolutionizing mortgage origination.

Today, according to Forbes, Digilytics AI is among the “15 of the most innovative AI companies driving exponential shifts in their respective sectors.”

Role of AI in this Improvisation  

Artificial Intelligence plays an essential role in transforming the traditional mortgage origination process into an automated one. AI finds a way to contribute and play a part in each stage of the origination process.

1. Document processing 

When the applicant sends their application and supporting documents, AI can help in processing them. Apart from AI, ML, NLP, and computer vision are used on OCR results to extract information from the documents with high accuracy levels. This process is known as One-shot Learning AI technology at Digilytics.

Through intelligent data processing, AI can extract data from the documents and automatically add the information into the loan origination software. It can also classify the documents based on income, expense, etc.

2. Underwriting 

Once the documents are processed, AI can algorithmically allocate underwriters to the loan case. It can then generate predictive models to help the underwriters make decisions on loan approvals.

3. Tracking 

RevEL also provides glass-pipe tracking that shows real-time analytics on key metrics. Through interactive dashboards in the loan origination software, lenders can also obtain actionable insights.

How does this help in establishing a human connection? 

Apart from higher gross lending and productivity and lower operation costs, Digilytics AI provides actionable insights generated using Artificial Intelligence. You can use these insights to get a better understanding of the borrower.

As AI and automation also accelerate the entire origination process, you get sufficient time to put these insights into action instead of wasting your time analysing documents and verifying information.

Conclusion 

Disruptive technologies like AI and ML are productive tools that you can use to,

• Transform the mortgage sector
• Shift the focus to human relationships
• Develop a strong rapport with the borrowers

Digilytics AI believes in the same ideologies and makes the mortgage journey easier and quicker for borrowers and lenders.

Request a demo today!

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