The Intermediary – November 2025 - Flipbook - Page 45
T H E I N T E RV I E W
NatWest
Land Registry. The goal is to “digitise these
journeys and ultimately help the customer
experience – which is at the heart of what
we’re doing.”
NatWest and PEXA are on track to deliver the
first of these steps in the initial three months
of Q1, with a plan to “ramp up the remortgage
plan” towards the middle of the year. The
second phase is to extend this to other
mortgage journeys, aligning with the wider
retail bank’s digital strategy.
Edwards says: “Our ambition by the end of
next year is that PEXA will be delivering the
sales and purchase journey.”
By 2027, the goal is to provide a “best in
market” speed to offer, and then by 2030,
to cut this down to 24 hours. This will be
enabled by open architecture, application
programming interface (API) integrations,
artificial intelligence (AI) driven processes and
horizontal digital integration across the supply
chain. For the customer, this means “a faster
completion, which is what everybody wants.”
Edwards adds: “It means improved
transparency within the process, as well, which
is what causes most of the stress.
“It’s also great security, knowing that the
funds have been transferred.”
Supporting all players
At the heart of this progress is a focus on
humans – both those that work within the
market, and those trying to navigate it. One of
the goals is to shift the homebuying process,
taking it from a slow and painful slog to
something more rational and painless.
Edwards says: “From the customer’s
perspective, it’s about that transparency and
clarity, which is key at a particularly stressful
time. Whether you’re buying a house, looking
to remortgage, doing home improvements
or have had a change in circumstances – it’s
a very trying time. By developing that digital
journey, we can create greater speed and
efficiency for the customer, but ultimately also
for us and our colleagues that work within our
operations business.”
One of the most beleaguered sections of the
property market, which – rightly or wrongly –
takes the brunt of much of people’s frustration
with the process, is conveyancing.
The onset of this new, streamlined and
digitally enabled approach will also ease
conveyancing pains, according to Edwards:
“Conveyancers will be able to take advantage
of that as well. They’re able to benefit from the
transparency, the same as us and the same as
the customer.”
At the centre of all this, of course, is not just
the customer, but the broker as their link into
the property finance market. Edwards is clear
that the advent of greater tech optimisation
does not mean the removal of the intermediary
– far from it, NatWest’s goal is to make life
easier for the integral cohort of brokers helping
the end customer through the biggest purchase
of their lives.
Edwards says: “Digitisation is about
efficiency, not just for us, but ultimately for
the broker and customer. It’s about how we
work together to understand how these
enhancements and changes in technology and
platforms can be utilised together to help move
the housing market forward together.
“Research has shown that customers do
want advice. Brokers are the experts in the
field and can support the customer to make the
right decision for them – especially if we take
first-time buyers as an example.”
Edwards wants to make sure to bring brokers
along with NatWest on the journey to tech
optimisation, ensuring that “we understand
the advantages and the benefits for everybody
involved, securing the right outcome for the
broker and the customer.”
She adds that greater transparency and
clarity could ease one of the hardest aspects
of the process for brokers, namely managing
client expectations and helping them
understand timescales that might not fit with
their personal goals and views on how long the
process should take.
This will, in turn, “support the conveyancer
in the process as well,” by creating fewer
scenarios where a customer, left in the dark
and concerned for their purchase, is pushing to
chase the conveyancer for updates. Edwards
says: “That’s a time saving and efficiency win
for everybody involved in the process.”
Standards, trust, collaboration
NatWest is not simply working towards a
better process for itself, and to push for
primacy in the market. This is part of a broader
goal to create a higher standard of information
sharing and collaboration, which will benefit all
in the long run.
There have been various initiatives in
recent years, spurred on by the pandemic but
not entirely borne out of crisis, to improve
information efficiency in this market.
The standout among these is the onset of
Open Banking, which was “bandied around for
a number of years” before it started to take a
strong footing, now becoming much more
the norm. →
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