Whether you’ve been a mortgage adviser for some time, or just been in the industry for a while, you’ll know that the job you’re trained to do has, in many respects, become more complex. Increased regulatory compliance, the additional layers of responsibility created by consumer duty and the vast array of mortgage product offers, means that you’re not only spinning many different plates, but operating in an environment where you need to evidence that you’re doing the right thing - and offering the best advice possible.
One of the consequences of all this is that mortgage advisers are in short supply. It’s a tougher profession to qualify for, and has become significantly demanding once you’re in it.
So, you’re an important asset, but an increasingly scarce commodity, as this recent mortgage industry blog explains.
The other issue affecting the industry is the significant role that technology plays in every aspect of a mortgage adviser or mortgage broker’s daily lives. For the older generation, who came through the industry with a pen and paper, the sheer volume of technology that advisers now have to get their head around is potentially mind-boggling.
But, as this 2022 survey by Smart 365 found out, 61% of mortgage professionals believe technology is now integral to the future of the industry, with 56% saying that the biggest advantage of tech is that it saves them time.
“Speed and efficiency are particularly important in this high interest rate environment” reveals the survey.
Which is reassuring, as that’s precisely what Binder is all about. Being a mortgage adviser is a rewarding career option (in every sense) but we want to make it a less stressful one too.
Binder was actually conceived before the current shortage became so apparent, but one of the core motives behind the design of the Binder mortgage adviser CRM portal was to simplify the daily and weekly workload of mortgage advisers. The issues we wanted to tackle were the:
It might seem ironic to want to tackle the complexities of a tech-driven industry with another piece of technology but, as I’ve stressed already, the key driver behind every aspect of Binder is simplicity.
One of our key objectives in developing Binder was that it had to have an interface with Intelliflo, the industry standard platform used by financial services and mortgage adviser professionals.
But with Binder, the game changing feature that we’ve introduced is that you can seamlessly migrate all current client files across and use the Binder portal to input all your client information.
The key feature here is that Binder only presents you with fields applicable to a mortgage adviser. You’re not wading through unnecessary pages of blank data fields. This is where significant time is saved through the avoidance of unnecessary duplication.
We want to speed things up. To use a sporting analogy, Binder is about helping you achieve marginal gains. Saving 20 minutes here and there with different processes soon becomes an hour or two at the end of the day, and 8-10 hours by the end of the week.
As you’ll see from our features page, the Client Portal area is where you can simply tick a few boxes to request all the supporting documentation (payslips, bank statements, proof of ID) that you need from your clients. These documents are also encrypted and securely stored on our system to ensure complete compliance with confidentiality and GDPR.
We know from our own experience that case management is another area where hours can be lost retrieving client data, either to progress a mortgage application further or to check on an existing client’s mortgage and insurance products. Binder is specifically designed to make retrieval simple and quick. And, of course, by having them securely stored on the portal you can also download them for compliance at any time.
The Live Chat feature on Binder is another example of where we’re using technology to reduce the stresses caused by communications. One of the challenges facing today’s mortgage advice professionals is the array of communication channels that they have to cope with from every one of their clients: texts, email messages, WApp, Messenger, even the good old fashioned letter. Left uncontrolled they can become a massive distraction.
With Live Chat on Binder we’ve created an easy-to-use live feed with your clients that means you don’t have to use various comms channels, which then need to be stored and documented. By chatting in real time with your clients, all your communications are securely stored alongside each of your clients case notes - so they form part of an integrated file containing every piece of dialogue. And every time you send them a message, they get an immediate notification.
This is our latest feature, one that we’ve invested huge amounts of time in developing. Why? Because we know that fact finding is the foundation of every successful mortgage and life cover application.
Compliance. Consumer Duty. Best practice. Achieving all these elements of your job requires a rigorous fact find. But, as we found out, no current system is truly bespoke to the mortgage adviser industry.
So we’ve developed a mortgage-specific Fact Find solution that avoids time-wasting duplication of data. Not only that, but your client information is securely stored for when you need to revisit it for a remortgage deal, new mortgage or change in mortgage protection. As with all data stored on Binder, it’s securely encrypted for complete peace of mind.
Plus, this is another key piece of supporting documentation that can be downloaded as evidence of compliance.
Chris Clegg, a recent convert to Binder, had this to say about the portal:
“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”.
Email info@Binder.cloud to arrange a demo. Then try it FREE for 30 days.
