The Intermediary – November 2025 - Flipbook - Page 36
In Profile.
Q&A
Jessica Bird speaks with Neal and Dale Jannels, managing
director and CEO at One Mortgage System (OMS), about the
future of mortgage technology
F
rom packagers to lenders, brokers
to IT, Neal and Dale Jannels have
experience across all facets of the
mortgage market. This, and a growing
realisation that something needed to
change in the way the market handled data, led to
the foundation of One Mortgage System (OMS).
With this foundation, the future is bright, Dale
says: “We did £1.9bn in September in mortgage
transactions, and I reckon we’ll probably process
£40bn next year across the mortgage market.”
The Intermediary sat down with Neal and Dale
to discuss how OMS has changed the game for
brokers, lenders, and the market as a whole.
Legacy pain points
OMS was born out of the brothers’ own frustration
with fragmented, outdated systems. Dale says:
“Rather than upgrading our system and having
to buy two or three to do what we wanted, we
wanted to spend the money on one system that
could do the whole process from start to finish.”
The Jannels built a single customer relationship
management (CRM) system integrating broker,
lender and packager workflows – essentially for
their own use, building on Neal’s experience on the
IT side. Before long, competitors and lenders were
knocking on the door.
“People are stuck on legacy systems they can’t
change,” says Neal. “They have to go back to the
IT team. They have to wait six months for testing.
They get a massive bill at the end of it.”
The impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis
had only served to reinforce the need for solid
systems that reduced individuals’ workflow
without removing secure risk oversight and all the
factors needed for sensible decisioning.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it further
challenges that even the most agile businesses
were ill-equipped to handle. In particular, it
exposed weaknesses in server-based technology.
OMS’ cloud-based approach came into its own,
providing continuity when most felt untethered.
Neal explains: “For server-based businesses, if
they can’t get into the office, they’ve got no way
of getting all the information off the server. Being
web-based means they can access their client
information from home rather than having to be in
the office.”
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The Intermediary | November 2025
OMS saw “exponential growth over that period,”
Dale says, adding: “That started to really increase
our interest in the market. We became an itch that
a lot of people needed to scratch.”
OMS now serves more than 3,200 brokers with
its CRM. It is also either live or in the build stages
with 11 lenders on the origination side. OMS has a
particularly dominant presence in packaging, with
90% market penetration, and has found a strong
niche within the second charge sector, again with
about 90% of brokers using the system.
This year, OMS has partnered with major
names, including L&C Mortgages, Nationwide,
Interbridge, Selina and Admiral.
Flexibility and the future
At the core of OMS’ approach is removing the need
to rekey, saving hours on every case, according
to Dale. To this end, it includes more than 48
different application programming interfaces
(APIs), to allow systems to communicate
effectively. Beyond this, OMS provides complete
flexibility, including the chance to update
communication strategies, workflows, tasks,
privacy, permissions and more.
The system itself aims for incremental, constant
evolution, rather than waiting for one big push
that might take months and cause mayhem. Neal
says: “We tend to release new updates every two
weeks, and brokers can choose whether they have
these updated into their system or not.”
Dale adds: “We understood from day one exactly
how it should be mastered. We’ve listened to our
customers. We’ve not said, ‘right, this is where you
must go moving forward’.”
This includes taking
an adaptable, open
approach to future
technology – none of
which looms larger than
the subject of artificial
intelligence (AI). Dale
highlights some practical
uses for AI that will – and
already do – have a
positive
DALE JANNELS
