72% of mortgage brokers believe lenders are now too risk averse as a result of the Mortgage Market Review (MMR), including 23% who say they have become excessively so, according to research commissioned by EDM Mortgage Support Services (EDM MSS).

Brokers are also divided on whether the risk assessments of mortgage borrowers are more accurate now as a result of MMR, with 45% saying it is and 39% saying this is not the case.

The research show that the MMR, which took effect in April this year, has impacted the administrative burden on mortgage brokers to a greater or lesser extent: all brokers in the survey say they are spending more time on processing sales as a result of the MMR, with 60% saying the rise in time spent has been significant.

EDM MSS is the online property data network established by EDM Group following the acquisition of xit2 in April 2014.

The firm’s managing director, Joe Pepper, said: “The MMR was always going to increase the administrative burden on mortgage brokers, it was just a question of how much. But the jury is clearly still out on whether the risk assessments under the MMR have actually been worthwhile.

“Improving the quality of the communication platform used by all parties to the transaction could certainly help both ease the administrative burden and improve the accuracy of the risk assessments, leading to higher quality mortgage business and possibly giving lenders more confidence to lend to borrowers.

“Nearly half (43%) of mortgage brokers say they would like to see all parties involved in mortgage transactions communicating via a single platform. Greater use of quality systems would certainly enable brokers and other parties to deal with large amounts of data with speed and accuracy, freeing up time for industry personnel to add value elsewhere in their companies.”