“Our objective when deciding to integrate with Hometrack’s hub was to make faster, more accurate underwriting decisions,” said Andy Mellor, chief risk officer, Leeds Building Society. “Being faster benefits the broker and the more accurate we are from a risk perspective, by having more relevant data, the better our underwriting decisions are.”
About Leeds Building Society
Leeds Building Society is an award winning mutual established in 1875. The society prides itself on making decisions and acting in a way that protects the long-term interests of its customers, their families, the community and the environment.
Winner of awards for shared ownership and first-time buyer mortgages and savings products, Leeds was the first lender to adopt Hometrack’s live EPC solution at origination to complement its use of other climate change risk data, accessed through Property Risk Hub.
The challenge
Leeds wanted to find a way to make faster, more accurate lending decisions and improve the mortgage journey using a breadth of property data and increased automation without having to sign multiple contracts with multiple data providers.
It was important for the mutual to maintain a manageable eco-system which needed minimal IT engagement with Leeds BS.
“The question we had been trying to answer,” said Andy, “was how can we get as much data as possible down the existing pipes?”
The solution
By integrating its lending operation with Property Risk Hub, Leeds has access to multiple data services through a single integration and can benefit from Hometrack’s suite of automated solutions including Digital Valuer and its live EPC solution.
Property Risk Hub is Hometrack’s one stop software, data and decisioning platform. The platform fully integrates into lenders’ operating systems underpinning the mortgage journey from DIP to completion.
This integration means Leeds can pull back any data it needs from Hometrack and its trusted data partners, straight into its own network. With the benefit of more data, the mutual has improved the accuracy of its decision making.
How Leeds increased its percentage of automated valuations
Digital Valuer is the next generation of AVM. It fulfills the more difficult cases not accessible to traditional AVMs; driving increased automation, lower costs and increased digital journeys.
Following the adoption of Digital Valuer, Leeds has increased the percentage of automated valuations it can complete to 30%.
This increased use of automation means Leeds will save hundreds of thousands of pounds each year by not instructing a surveyor to visit the property. And for homeowners, they face a wait time of seconds versus up to six days.
Accessing EPC data at origination
By having access to the most up to date EPC data at origination, Leeds can make the right lending decision for the society and its customers.
Hometrack is making energy performance data available to lenders in real time to meet regulatory requirements in areas such as buy-to-let and to inform lenders and consumers of the impact of the home’s EPC rating.
The solution allows the mutual to add extra controls to support its strategy without adding time to the mortgage journey.
