The Intermediary – November 2025 - Flipbook - Page 46
T H E I N T E RV I E W
NatWest
Where this market has traditionally been
seen as reluctant to evolve, Edwards points
to the work of the Open Property Data
Association (OPDA) – of which NatWest is a
member – which is pushing to bring in these
cross-industry standards.
Edwards says this is a marker of intent
for the whole market, including NatWest’s
competitors. She welcomes the change,
adding: “It’s not just us, and there are thirdparties that are advocating for it as well. We
are collaborating for the good of the customer.
“So, standards have been set, and we’re now
working on real-time data exchanges, which is
something that we haven’t seen historically,
but that we’re now seeing now much more
freely between everybody in the process.
“That’s not just with us, that’s with the
conveyancers and the regulator as well,
which is important.
“As a result, we’re seeing a reduction in
duplication, which is something that we
haven’t seen before. We can speed up the
process by doing that.”
Pushing for progress
NatWest is leading the way with its partnership
with PEXA, pushing forward into what should
be a ‘new normal’. Edwards hopes others see
this as a chance to follow suit for the good of
the market.
She says: “If more lenders are supportive
of this, and use us as an example, it will
support industry’s ambitions to move forward.
Horizontal digital integration – that’s what
we’re advocating for.”
There may even come a time where, for
some customers, a lender’s level of digital
optimisation becomes as important a choice
factor as rate. Brokers, as trusted resources,
may advocate with their clients for lenders that
will make the process as painless as possible.
There is an imperative, then, not to be left
in the dust as others speed ahead into the
homebuying ecosystem of the future.
There are various concerns that have plagued
progress in this market. Some – cyber security,
privacy, fraud risk – are well-founded and are
an important consideration for any new tech
development to address. Others, Edwards says,
are just a matter of better education.
For example, the question of AI has sent
intermediaries, lenders and everyone in
between into a panic about the risks – whether
the terror of ‘black box’ thinking making
poor decisions, or on the other end of the
spectrum, the fear that AI will be so successful
it threatens the livelihoods of brokers.
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The Intermediary | November 2025
The truth is likely far less dramatic than either
option. For NatWest, AI is absolutely a tool to be
implemented as part of its streamlining efforts,
both now and in the future.
Before any panic ensues, Edwards explains
that AI is not as new and scary a concept as
some imagine, but has been “around in some
form for a long time,” helping digest information
and support decisions on the back-end in ways
many would not recognise as AI in the headlinegrabbing form it has today.
Edwards says: “It’s an enabler to help us build
more transparency, more speed, and more
efficiency into the home buying journey.”
Even as AI’s capabilities progress, Edwards is
not of the mindset that this spells disaster for
human intermediaries and underwriters.
She explains: “We, as humans, want that
ability to speak to somebody, especially in
something as important as home buying. Having
that ability to work with your broker, and to
work with lenders like us, is still absolutely key.
“What the AI and APIs are doing in this
scenario is just helping build the model and
make it more efficient – making the process
easier for everybody involved.”
This, in turn, allows more time for those
human interactions, and the hand-holding that
many borrowers still need from their broker.
Five-year plan
2026 is the year in which the NatWest and PEXA
partnership will really start to take hold. Beyond
that, NatWest’s plan is to create a data-driven,
collaborative ecosystem that simplifies the
homebuying and property finance process for
all parties, while keeping the customer central.
Edwards says: “I believe that, over the next
five years, technology such as PEXA and AI
and all the things that we’ve spoken about will
fundamentally reshape the mortgage market,
and also the homebuying market as well.”
This is not about reducing mortgages to
numbers in a book. Far from it, the plan is to use
data and information sharing to open up the
process and put people at the heart.
Edwards concludes: “We’re on a mission to
move from that fragmented, very paper-centric
process, with lots of emails and information
flying around, to enable a digital and a datadriven ecosystem that exists for everybody.
“From NatWest’s perspective, our vision
aligns to this transformation. There are three
key themes: speed, simplicity and making it
simple, with a customer-centric view.
“Ultimately, all of us that are part of the
homebuying process need to collaborate to
create a more efficient, transparent system.” ●
