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“As a mortgage adviser, mortgage broker or independent financial adviser, the biggest challenges we face is managing our time with the competing pressures of compliance, the new Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulations around consumer duty, and staying on top of communications with our clients.
“As one of the early adopters of the new Binder CRM portal, I was curious to see how it could really save me time. As any mortgage adviser will tell you, one of the biggest elements of our work is ensuring that you’ve accumulated all the evidence to prove that you are being compliant. And with the 2023 FCA regulations around consumer duty placing an even greater emphasis on evidence, having a system that keeps you on track as you go along is worth its weight in gold.”
“This recent article in The Intermediary shows just how onerous consumer duty has become for underwriting mortgage offers, which is where Binder’s ability to assimilate all your evidence into downloadable case files really comes into its own.
“The first, and most obvious feature about Binder, is that it is designed by mortgage advisers for mortgage advisers. Having used a larger CRM platform, one of the key issues that slowed me down was the duplication of data onto a system not specifically tailored to the unique user needs of mortgage applicants.
“The latest Beta version of Binder is now linked with the Intelliflo interface, which is where a significant proportion of financial services networks manage their CRM data. This is a game-changing development as it enables us to deploy Binder within an industry standard platform that we’re already familiar with but reap the benefits of using a tailor-made portal.
“Having all the specific fields designed for my user experience (rather than a generic system) means that data entry is now much quicker, and the system itself is more responsive. Basically, I’m not clicking my way through pages of empty data fields that aren’t relevant to mortgage applications.”
Average time saved in a week: 5 hours
“Even before the arrival of consumer duty, it was critical for me to spend valuable time with clients to understand their needs and financial circumstances, and to be able to scan the market for the best offers available. During a busy year like 2023, when the constant change in mortgage rates led to continuous alterations in offers from mortgage lenders, the time pressures placed on mortgage advisers like me were considerable.
“As an administrator on the Binder portal I can define who in my team has which level of access to my client files. This means they can help me progress each case without my direct involvement. This is a real game changer as it really does free up so much time. And because Binder notifies me of the changes in status to an application, it’s easy for me to manage my workflow better - I can see which cases are progressing smoothly, and which ones need more of my attention, or the attention of my team.”
Average time saved in a week: 2-3 hours
"During the lifetime of a mortgage application there are reams of conversations, from many different sources - emails, texts, WhatsApp messages, formal letters of acceptance - plus all the various exchanges of documentation such as bank statements and payslips.
"The Binder chat function has, arguably, made the biggest difference because it brings all my client communications together in one place. But not only that, it stores them securely so that I can evidence:
"Again, in terms of consumer duty, this is a great tool for capturing all the back and forth communication between me and my clients. Importantly, I’ve had feedback from my clients to say that they feel safe and comfortable using it."
Average time saved per week: 2-3 hours.
“Long hours at the laptop, mean less time with clients - and less time developing my new mortgage business pipeline. The great thing with Binder is that I can access it anywhere, and its alert notifications mean I can see where I’m up to with each of my cases, wherever I am.
“As with any new system it takes a few weeks to fully get into the swing of how it works but the 30 day free trial means you can really put it through its paces. Binder was actually much easier to use than I was expecting - and now that I’ve been using it constantly I can really appreciate the way it’s starting to change my work, through:
“All of the above means I can now spend more time developing a stream of new clients. Ultimately, I feel like I can trust Binder to keep me on the right side of mortgage compliance at every stage of each application. Documents can be safely and securely uploaded and stored, and I can download client files at any time in preparation for evidence of compliance.
“Binder has been one of the easiest financial CRM systems I have used and now that Binder allows me to sync my cases through my current IO platform it has managed to give me so much time back.”
To see how Binder can help you change your work life and save you valuable time, sign up for a 30 day trial. Watch a quick demo here.
