An XML e-commerce standard for the mortgage-sales
process that will allow brokers and lenders to cut sales-processing
time will be completed next month by financial service technology
standards groupOrigo.
The standard, which will be commercially available in June, will
allow brokers to communicate with lenders without having to link
their systems seperately.
Paul Pettitt, managing director at Origo, which is funded by
companies including Abbey, HBOS, RBS and the
Yorkshire Building Society, said standards could change the
face of e-commerce in the UK mortgage industry. "Enabling these
systems to link and transfer data more efficiently will make life
easier, save time for [brokers] and help them provide a more
efficient service to their customers."
Abbey is one of the organisations planning to adopt the full
standard. Katrina McGregor, head of IT engagement at Abbey for
intermediaries, said, "We believe the use of the Origo standards
have enabled us to operate with a more rapid and streamlined
approach making it more efficient for us, our partners and our
customers," she said.
Katie Tucker, technical director at broker Charcoal.com, said
standards will allow intermediaries to cut system development and
human resource costs.
She said companies spend too much time contacting each lender
for information because ecommerce systems speak a different
language. "If I currently spend six hours contacting lenders for
quotes, [with standards] I can bring this down to an hour and I can
[therefore] reduce the number of staff I need," she said.
Richard Farr, director at the Association of Mortgage
Intermediaries (AMI), said the mortgage industry should look
closely at standards after they proved successful in the life and
pensions sector. "Standards are mature in the life and pensions
market and it will be interesting to see if the benefits can be
seen in the mortgage market."
A total of £362bn was spent on mortgages in the UK last year
with about 70% of this going through about 11,000 broker firms and
up to 30,000 qualified advisers, according to the AMI.