A large origination and servicing outsourcer for the UK and Ireland mortgage industry launched a private-label online self-service tool for borrowers to monitor their accounts from their lender’s websites.
Homeloan Management Ltd. commissioned financial services technology developer Intelligent Environments Ltd. to build the platform. The tool essentially plugs into a lender’s website and is customized with branding and logos to be consistent with the rest of the lender’s online presence, giving borrowers the ability to monitor their account from the same environment they would use to conduct other online business.
It’s designed for use after a borrower has obtained a mortgage and is in repayment, and lets users view mortgage account details like balance and last payment information, download commonly used forms, view FAQs and contact HML’s servicing staff via secure messaging. Later in the year, HML said the tool will also include the ability to make online payments.
“We understand that our clients’ customers want to access their mortgage account in a number of ways and an online service is a convenience that many now consider mandatory,” Neil Warman, chief commercial and finance officer at HML, said in a press statement.
“However, we would not expect our clients’ customers to have to visit their lender’s website and then be redirected to our website to do this, as consumers don’t know HML administers their mortgage,” he added. “Our white-labeled service gives our clients a branded website that improves the service experience we provide to their customers.”
HML provides private-label mortgage servicing to more than 45 financial institutions. Its servicing system of record platform manages nearly 400,000 active mortgages and has assets under management of approximately £43 billion ($70 billion).
It is a subsidiary of Skipton Building Society, the fourth largest building society in the U.K. Building societies are similar to U.S. credit unions in that they offer banking and lending services and are owned by customer members. But the organizations typically put a greater emphasis on mortgage lending than credit unions do.
HML claims the tool is the first white-labeled online self-service platform in the mortgage industry. While not a prominent third-party technology in the mortgage industry, there are similar products available on this side of the pond.
Lender Processing Services offers a tool for lender/servicer users of its Mortgage Servicing Platform to let borrowers go online and use private-labeled websites to make payments, check loan balances and complete worksheets to prequalify to refinance their mortgages. Currently, LPS has 40 customers using the service.
In February, Fiserv launched an online self-service module for borrowers to access their loan information and make payments from websites branded with the lender/servicer’s identity.
