The Intermediary – November 2025 - Flipbook - Page 34
T E C H N O L O GY
In focus
Unifying the
mortgage
market journey
W
e talk
frequently
about seamless
advice
journeys,
frictionless
submissions and integrated
ecosystems that empower advisers
and improve outcomes for their
customers. Yet despite this shared
ambition, the reality remains
stubbornly consistent: virtually
all advisers still operate within a
fragmented system. Integrated
in parts, yes, but fundamentally
disconnected in how technology binds
together the components of their
workflow. Systems talk to each other,
but they do not yet truly understand
each other.
This disjointed experience is not
due to a lack of innovation. In fact,
the market is rich with excellent
technology. The challenge is that
each solution has evolved to solve a
specific problem at a specific moment
in time. Regulation changes, volatile
rate environments and shiing
consumer expectations have all shaped
technology in incremental layers,
rather than as part of a cohesive
vision. The result is a disparate
ecosystem built in stages. Advisers
are le stitching the pieces together
through their own expertise and time.
Many also remain understandably
cautious about leaning too heavily
on technology, concerned that overreliance on automated data or system
outputs that could expose them
to errors or reliability risks they,
ultimately, remain accountable for.
During periods of economic
volatility, this fragmentation becomes
even more apparent. It is not the
quality of the tools that creates
inefficiency; it is their inability to
share context in real time. When
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The Intermediary | November 2025
lenders act swily, advisers feel the
operational burden unless the systems
around them are unified, responsive
and capable of interpreting data
consistently.
This is why product alone cannot
solve the market’s digital challenge.
A lot of the technology focus within
the market has been around creating
product and connecting components
of the journey, to try and deliver
a more seamless experience for
businesses. While this philosophy isn’t
wrong, and will continue to play a role
in delivering compelling solutions for
users, there must be more of a focus
around surfacing the right data at the
right time for the right audience. Data
creates a context bridge that caters for
the uniqueness for each business or
user – this is where product can only
deliver so much.
When journeys are fuelled by realtime transferable data, they stop being
linear processes and become tools of
endless value.
Product isn’t the problem
Context is the missing ingredient,
because context is what allows a
journey to adapt to the user rather
than forcing the user to adapt.
When we look across the industry
as a whole, there remains a tendency
to view integration as the end goal,
as though connecting systems is
synonymous with unifying them. But
integration is only the transport layer.
Unification is about intelligence:
enabling the journey itself to flex
with the data it receives, the type
of customer involved, the stage
of the process and the needs of
the adviser. Market conditions,
whether through fluctuating rates,
increased remortgage activity or
rising regulatory scrutiny, have only
intensified this need.
NATHAN REILLY
is commercial director
at Twenty7tec
At Twenty7tec, our sourcing
capabilities, connectivity with
customer relationship management
tools (CRMs), lender integrations
and consumer-facing solutions
are built around the belief that
technology must do more than present
information. It must interpret it,
personalise it and guide the user to the
next logical step. The work we do is
not about adding more systems to an
adviser’s desk; it’s about improving the
way existing systems communicate,
interact and react.
Collaboration
However, the market cannot achieve
true unification through the actions
of any single provider. As an industry,
we have too oen treated technology
as an area where firms compete for
ownership rather than collaborate.
The best outcomes for advisers
and consumers will come when
lenders, distributors, technology
providers and data partners work
together to create shared frameworks.
A unified experience will never
emerge from closed systems or
protectionist thinking.
Collaboration should not be
viewed as a dilution of competitive
advantage; it is the foundation on
which competition becomes more
meaningful. When everyone is
working from the same high-quality,
real-time data, innovation accelerates.
When the market aligns, advisers
stop being the glue and systems begin
to operate as one. That is how we
deliver with confidence and create
an environment where advisers
spend more time advising, not
administrating. ●
