The Intermediary – September 2026 - Flipbook - Page 99
T E C H N O L O GY
Opinion
What can lenders
learn from
one another?
I
t’s that time of year again
– when we sit down with
more than 40 lenders of all
shapes and sizes from across
the market to discover what’s
working, what’s not and
what’s keeping the decision-makers
up at night.
The next Fignum ‘Mortgage Tech
Pulse’ will examine a mortgage
market that has moved beyond broad
agreement on the need for change.
The more difficult question is whether
lenders can translate technology
ambition into stronger capability
across the full life of a loan.
For the inaugural Pulse, we spoke in
confidence to senior leaders at more
than 40 UK mortgage lenders. Their
experiences differed by size, funding
model and market focus, yet the
underlying message was consistent.
Technology change was no longer
viewed as optional, it had become
central to capacity, risk management
and the expectations of brokers,
borrowers and regulators.
The research also exposed a
more complicated reality. Much of
the market’s recent progress had
been concentrated in origination.
Lenders were improving application
journeys and reducing friction where
they could, yet the pace of progress
was uneven.
Servicing and core banking
remained harder to change, carrying
more operational dependency and
regulatory sensitivity. The result was
a growing imbalance between how
mortgages are originated and how
they are managed over their full term.
The relationship with the borrower
does not end at completion. Product
transfers, payment changes, further
lending, and support for customers
in difficulty all place demands on
systems designed for a different era.
The 2026 Pulse found that lenders
oen succeeded through workarounds
and manual effort. Those methods
can sustain a business for a period,
but they do not deliver consistent
decisions and service at scale.
The same tension was evident in
the use of data and automation. Most
lenders remained cautious about
handing high-value, long-duration
credit decisions to automated systems
– accountability and explainability
remain central to mortgage lending
for good reason.
The opportunity lies in using
technology to strengthen the quality
and timeliness of human decisions,
not in treating judgement as a process
that can simply be removed.
That first edition also challenged an
assumption that has shaped mortgage
technology discussion for years.
Preparedness was not determined by
size alone. Some confident lenders
had a clear view of their operating
model, knew where their data
sat and could adapt integrations
without destabilising the business.
Lenders need sufficient clarity and
control to make deliberate decisions
about change.
No standing still
The next ‘Mortgage Tech Pulse’ will
return to these themes as the market
moves into a more demanding phase.
Regulatory change, cyber and fraud
risk, margin pressure, artificial
intelligence (AI) and higher service
expectations are all testing lenders’
ability to respond.
We want to understand how
priorities are changing across the
mortgage lifecycle, how technology
is supporting growth and where
execution remains difficult. The
research will examine the relationship
between data, decision-making,
STEVE CARRUTHERS
is growth director at Fignum
operational capacity, resilience
and governance.
This is not an exercise in celebrating
technology for its own sake. The
purpose of the Pulse is to develop an
honest picture of how the market is
responding and where the points of
friction remain.
That requires contributions
from organisations with different
business models, risk appetites and
technology estates. A lender using
manual underwriting in a niche
market may face a very different set of
pressures from a national lender with
highly automated origination, but
both perspectives are essential if the
research is to be useful.
As before, participation will be
confidential. Discussions will be
conducted on an anonymous basis,
allowing senior lending, technology,
operations and risk leaders to speak
candidly about the decisions facing
their businesses.
The resulting research will provide
participants with context for their
own strategy while helping the wider
sector move beyond headline claims
about transformation.
The first Pulse concluded that, for
many lenders, the cost of standing still
had begun to exceed the cost of change.
The next edition will assess what
that means in practice, including the
industry’s progress in closing the gap
between intention and delivery and
the constraints that are emerging.
We invite senior leaders from UK
mortgage lenders to take part in the
next Fignum ‘Mortgage Tech Pulse’
and contribute to a more practical
understanding of the technology
choices now shaping the market. ●
September 2026 | The Intermediary
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