Open Finance, AI and Controls
The FCA’s review of small-business access to finance found that regulation was not the principal barrier, but highlighted information gaps, complex applications and duplicated checks. Its next steps include prioritising SME lending as an open-finance use case and monitoring work on digital verification that could reduce repeated customer checks while preserving financial-crime controls. This is […]
Mortgage Journey Simulation Arrives
Novus has launched Pathfinder, a mortgage journey simulator designed to help lenders identify friction points before investing in process or technology change. The platform aims to model existing journeys using real-world data and test how changes to systems, suppliers and customer journeys could affect performance. For advisers, better lender-side simulation could eventually mean fewer avoidable […]
AI Reshapes Mortgage Sourcing
Mortgage sourcing is expected to look materially different in the next few years as firms adopt artificial intelligence. The opportunity is not simply to find a rate faster: AI can support criteria matching, document triage, case preparation and the identification of missing information before a full application is submitted. One reported document-handling trial read incoming […]
Base Rate Hold, Mortgage Hikes
The Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% in September, with the Monetary Policy Committee voting 6-3 to maintain the rate. However, the decision offers limited reassurance for borrowers: inflation reached 3.1% in August, market expectations have shifted and lenders are continuing to reprice fixed products in response to swap-rate and funding conditions. Fleet […]