Mortgage Brain has reported a reduction in ESIS produced from its mortgage sourcing systems of 1.8% in the week ending 22 March when compared to the average over the previous nine weeks.
Looking at Monday 23 March and comparing this to one week earlier it has seen a reduction of 7.2%.
Conversely, usage of Criteria Hub has seen a marked increase in activity following the introduction of a number of residential and buy-to-let criteria specifically related to Coronavirus.
These criteria are:
- Does the lender have a COVID 19 policy?
- Is the lender offering a payment holiday?
- Will the lender allow conversion to interest only?
- Are fees waived for missed mortgage payments (not agreed payment holidays) due to COVID 19 difficulties?
To date, 40 residential and 29 buy-to-let lenders have provided information that Mortgage Brain has published on Criteria Hub, with these figures expected to increase in the following days.
The response to the recent announcement to make the complete Criteria Hub proposition available to new customers for at least 90 days at no charge has resulted in an increase in new customers. Together with use by existing customers, this has helped to reduce demand on lender and intermediary help desks.
Mortgage Brain has also given lenders the opportunity to make Criteria Hub available to their BDMs at no charge, allowing them to continue providing updates to intermediaries while working remotely.
Mark Lofthouse, CEO at Mortgage Brain, said: “In these unprecedented times there will be fluctuations in usage of technology as the change to home working takes place and while we are able to report that weekly ESIS production has remained stable this is likely to change. Helping intermediaries and lenders to help themselves by using Criteria Hub instead of help desks is gaining traction.
“Coming together as an industry is vital at times like this and we’re happy to do our bit. The service that intermediaries provide helps their customers in their time of need and we must ensure advisers can continue to provide their services.”
