Darlington Building Society (DBS) has announced an early extension of its partnership with finova, securing its use of the MSO loan origination platform until July 2030.

The mutual first implemented MSO in 2021, leveraging the cloud-based platform to improve operational efficiency while maintaining its personal, common-sense underwriting approach. Since then, MSO has helped reduce the society’s average application-to-offer time by 10 days, leading to the decision to extend the contract ahead of schedule.

ENHANCING EFFICIENCY AND CUSTOMER RETENTION

The MSO platform has continued to provide value to DBS, introducing self-build mortgage functionality to drive business growth. Broker and digital execution-only rate switch capabilities have also improved customer retention rates, with nearly half of all retentions now completed digitally. In 2024, DBS maintained an average mortgage retention rate of over 70%.

Additionally, the MSO platform has helped accelerate DBS’s mortgage application process, with the Society completing an application to offer in just one working day — a process that included valuation and full manual underwriting.

Broker feedback has also been positive, with DBS receiving an NPS score of 81.9 in the first half of 2024, according to Smart Money People.

PARTNERSHIP FOR GROWTH

Finova’s MSO platform supports a wide range of building societies and banks across the UK, streamlining mortgage origination processes and improving customer experience. Having transitioned fully to a SaaS-based cloud platform, finova now processes nearly one in five UK mortgages, managing over £50 billion in originations annually.

Marcus Bennett, client delivery director at finova & MSO, said: “After four successful years, we are grateful to have an opportunity to further strengthen our valued partnership with Darlington Building Society.

“The renewed contract will lay a foundation for further innovation in Darlington Building Society’s services to brokers, improving the user-experience and supporting the building society’s growth strategy.

“As partners, we share a mutual commitment to push innovation into the market, and our ongoing collaboration will continue to deliver an enhanced service to brokers and customers alike.”

Chris Hunter, deputy chief executive officer at Darlington Building Society, added: “Since we signed contracts for implementation in 2020 Darlington Building Society has always viewed the relationship with the MSO team as true partnership, where we work together for common good.

“Since go-live, finova’s MSO platform has enabled a tangible improvement in our application to offer times, and a superior service to mortgage brokers as specialist lender.

“We are always listening to broker feedback, and we know they value the MSO cutting-edge technology alongside the human touch with access to our decision makers the mortgage underwriters. The society aims to make our processes as streamlined and efficient as possible for our colleagues and our mortgage broker partners – and our renewed contract with finova will allow us to innovate further, enable our product development and meet our growth targets as a business until at least 2030.”