"I would encourage everybody to try new technologies. And I think if anything, the pace of what we are seeing will accelerate. "
- Alexis Rog, Sikoia
AI will be crucial for improving efficiency and reducing transaction times in the mortgage industry, but pitfalls do remain, a panel of experts at the recent Mortgage Adviser Event Manchester agreed.
In a seminar titled 'The future of the homebuying journey' in the Financial Reporter seminar theatre, the panel discussed the challenges and potential solutions in the home buying process.
Key points included average seven-month transaction times, the need for better customer experience management, and the impact of outdated systems.
Martyn Stones from Countrywide Surveying Services commented: "AI will take not just this industry, but everywhere by storm. And it's, as various people have said, akin to the introduction of the internet."
Dual track adoption has held the industry back
Turning to why current improvements in technology haven't helped to improve transaction times, Mark Tosetti from the Conveyancing Alliance said: "It has to be a burning issue. And I think, and I think for some organisations it is, and I think for some organisations it's less so."
Martyn agreed, stating: "If lenders don't want to get involved, we can only move as fast as they allow us to do. And I think that's probably going to be, in the immediate short term, a bit of a bit of a limiting factor as well."
Alexis Rog from Sikoia echoed the statement, adding: "That catalyst can only come either from bigger players that have a bigger influence on the market or a government push. It's extremely difficult. And then there is the what we can do as individual stakeholders, you know, as brokers, lenders, conveyancers, and that really is up to us to adopt the technology there. What we saw in the past is different levels of urgency in adoption and kind of dual track, which will be, I think, increasingly apparent between the players that adopt that new technologies and the ones that don't."
AI will do the 'heavy lifting' in the mortgage process
However, the panel agreed that AI and technology will have a significant impact in the future, automating many processes and taking away "heavy lifting" tasks. Increased digitization and data sharing between stakeholders will also enable more efficient processes, they said. As Beth Rudolf from The Conveyancing Association mentioned, the digital property information protocol being developed "should be out hopefully in November" to help standardize data sharing.
Alexis Rog commented: "Mortgages is actually right to be disrupted, because at the core mortgage process, if we just look at it from a procedural point of view, is just about moving information right?. You pass it along the chain, and somebody needs to verify that info. That's perfect AI application."
Beth noted that at the moment in property transactions "so much of the data can't be accessed by AI because it's all on analog documents, and that's where government are stepping in to work out what they can digitise to enable it to be used".
The harmony between AI and mortgage advice
Discussing the place for AI within the advice process, Alexis said: "I think the good news for mortgages is that human advice will always be core. It's not something that will be fully disintermediated, but it's really about how we can make it more efficient. How can we improve digitisation? How can we increase connectivity between you and the rest of the ecosystem? And then, how can we automate processes?"
Beth agreed, saying: "That's a really nice point, actually. Somebody pointed out to me the other day, when you go to take out insurance, where do you go? You go to Compare the Market, straight off without even thinking about it. But when you go to do your mortgage, you may have a look around to start with, but you want to make sure you're getting the best deal, and you might want to make sure you're not being an idiot. So mortgage brokers are always going to be needed. We're always going to want mortgage intermediaries to hold our hand and let us know that we're not missing out."
Concluding, Alexis said: "I would encourage everybody to try new technologies. And I think if anything, the pace of what we are seeing will accelerate. And there are plenty of opportunities to use open AI, so ask your networks, CRM providers and others for change or what you see in the market. I think ultimately this will lead to a competitive advantage, which creates more efficiency for you, but at the end of the day, a fundamentally better customer experience."
