Client story
Darlington Building Society
Mortgage Sales & Originations (MSO) case study
"Reimagining our mortgage process was much easier than we thought"
Specialising in human decision-making and complex lending cases, Darlington Building Society needed more time to focus where it mattered.
Chris Hunter, Deputy CEO of the Society, spoke to us in June 2021 about the answer being much more straightforward than they thought possible.
“We didn't realise Iress MSO is for smaller lenders too”
“Darlington Building Society had a digital front end, a core banking platform, lots of spreadsheets and a pile of third party suppliers along the mortgage chain which were all unconnected. We needed to be easier to do business with, while also sustainably increasing our volume without inflating operating costs - so we spoke to Iress.
Initially we thought the Iress mortgage lending software was best suited to larger, highly automated, mainstream lenders, turning over straightforward cases at scale. I doubted our business model would be compatible nor the costs viable. But we were pleasantly surprised when we sat down and explored what Iress could do for us."
There are a lot of providers out there who aspire to deliver the same level of technology in the future. We need it now.
Deputy CEO
Achieving sustainable growth without the complexity
“When your business is built around human decision making and more specialist cases, the process is already layered with complexity. If we looked at increasing our volumes without MSO, we’d just add more administration, requiring more people at each stage. More rekeying of information and manual moving of data only increases the risk of things going wrong or causes delays, which compromises the customers’ experience. But, Iress technology will remove the need for rekeying, make everything faster, and will help us connect to current disparate systems. This means we will be able to focus where we add the most value - on the specialist cases that need human consideration to achieve the best outcomes.”
Seeing the potential from better connectivity
“It feels like we have a real partnership with the team at Iress. They’ve listened to our requirements to help us use the technology appropriately to make our business work better.
The technology we are going to be using is well established and working. There are a lot of providers out there who aspire to deliver the same level of capability, but are not there yet. A society of our size needs it now.
Iress’ connections mean they can listen to what brokers’ and customers’ requirements are and shape their technology around that. From a lender’s perspective that’s what’s most important. It’s a strong competitive advantage and something we can leverage.”
Iress’ ability to listen to brokers and customers, and shape their technology around that, is what’s important to lenders.
Deputy CEO
Mainstream benefits for a specialist lender
“While automated decision making will never have a place at Darlington Building Society, MSO, Lender Connect and the integration with Lending Metrics, will enable quicker decisions and better transparency through the process to make us easier to do business with.
We play an important specialist role in the market but now, in terms of our servicing, we can offer some of the benefits enjoyed by the mainstream market as we really start to embed the technology.
We are already excited about other integrations we can take advantage of with this newfound connectivity, we would have taken much longer to get here without Iress.”
We are excited about other integrations we can take advantage of now. We would have taken much longer to get here without Iress.
Deputy CEO
How do you make the business of mortgages easier?
Recognised as the most advanced end-to-end software of its kind, our mortgage sales and originations software is helping lenders of all sizes transform the way they do business.
Remove the constraints of legacy systems, innovate and grow with software that helps your business create a better mortgage experience for everyone.
