Mortgage Brokers Adapt with Technology

2022 Mortgage Broker Industry Pulse Survey

Mortgage brokers are experiencing heavy workload demands preparing loan applications, record keeping and gathering supporting documentation. This strain on brokers' work-life balance is an important topic and has been reiterated in our recent Go Talks podcast 'How brokers are adapting to the changing mortgage market' with Peter White the Managing Director of the Finance Broker Association. But they can see a way forward in using technology to increase efficiency and improve service delivery, according to the 2022 Mortgage Broker Industry Pulse check, which provides a snapshot of evolving work practices in Australia's mortgage broking industry.

Mortgage brokers are getting busier

It's clear that mortgage brokers are concerned about their increasing workloads. Nearly 4 in 5 brokers surveyed said they expected the volume of applications and administrative work to increase over the next 12 months. An ever-shifting regulatory environment and the advent of Best Interest Duty (BID) reforms have left many brokers overwhelmed with paperwork.

With mortgage brokers driven by a desire to serve clients and educate on property, this administrative burden can impact work satisfaction. There is less time available to maximise value for their clients, such as negotiating the best possible deal or offering a wide range of loan options and less time to support clients and foster relationships that build stable, profitable businesses.

Balancing work and family life is also getting harder. Over half the brokers surveyed expected their high workload to impair work-life balance in the coming year.

It's well-documented that stress, burnout, and disenchantment are the expected outcomes of not having the means to juggle competing priorities. Burnout was classified as an occupational phenomenon by The World Health Organisation in 2019 to recognise its role in undermining work performance.

The 3 biggest broker time wasters

Mortgage brokers face many drains on their time, but lead generation takes out the top spot in this survey. Application lodgement is the second most prominent time waster, and the third is verifying an applicant's employment income information and assessing for fraud. Related to these time wasters, brokers who haven't yet embraced tech innovation, there is a significant time and revenue drain in manually working out which leads are worth pursuing or
chasing clients for unreturned documents.

Even for brokers using digital processes, time is still wasted if multiple systems and platforms don't integrate. Going from one source to another to access a client's credit score, verify their identity or retrieve their income and expense data is complicated and disjointed.

The good news is that tech innovation is solving this problem by providing centralised access to information needed for pre-qualification. With Equifax Fact Finder, mortgage brokers can see their client's credit activity, salary, liabilities, living expenses and ID verification together in one place.

Importantly, Equifax Fact Finder puts clients in the driver's seat to provide some of the most relevant information for the pre-qualification process in a convenient way. Mortgage brokers no longer have to hand-hold their clients through the task of supplying income and expense information or verifying their identity.

Utilising technology

Mortgage brokers are turning to technology to reduce workload pressures and create better customer experiences. Over the next 12 months, the mortgage broker industry pulse survey shows 20% of brokers plan to adopt new digital solutions to automate processes and streamline workflows, with 60% planning to write more loans.

Digital capability is a measure of success now more than ever. Data, analytics and technology, play an increasingly important role in simplifying processes and helping brokers achieve faster turnaround times.

Interested in finding out what else we discovered? Click here for the full survey results. Learn what the top issues are in managing borrower applications and what most concerns the customers of mortgage brokers.

For more information about Equifax Fact Finder or our other mortgage broker tools and solutions, click here to contact our team.