Sales director Adrian Moloney says bespoke underwriting is in the DNA of OneSavings Bank's (OSB) after the specialist lending group signed a deal with leading property risk software developer eTech.
An agreement has been made to implement OSB's online portfolio submission platform ahead of the PRA’s SS13/16 portfolio landlord underwriting standards coming into effect on 1st October.
The solution, built on the backbone of eTech’s Buy to Let Hub, will give brokers one straightforward online solution, streamlining portfolio stress testing and income coverage ratio assessment to provide a rapid response to loan applications, all delivered through one simple broker dashboard for ongoing monitoring and management.
Together with input from Mortgages for Business, the platform has been designed with the broker experience at the heart of the system. It will allow intermediaries to upload portfolio property details directly onto the platform, either manually or from Excel. New portfolios can also be quickly created based on previous portfolio data. The BTL Hub then automates key criteria variables, sending a summary report automatically to the underwriters, allowing the lender to assess individual applications quickly and efficiently.
OSB is the first specialist lender to put in place the dedicated underwriting technology with eTech, to give brokers a clear and straightforward process for providing the required portfolio information in compliance with the stricter portfolio landlord’s underwriting standards introduced by the PRA.
And Mr Moloney added: “As a specialist lender, this sort of bespoke underwriting is in our DNA, so it will be business as usual for us come October. Nevertheless, brokers are our business, and we know they are soon going to be hit with a greater administrative burden, so we want to do all we can to make the transition as smooth as possible.
“I’d like to thank Steve Olejnik and the broker team at Mortgages for Business, as well as the team at eTech for their expertise and insight in enabling us to provide a solution that delivers the functionality that brokers will find most useful. They’ll be able to upload, monitor and manage the portfolio element of their applications in one intuitive dashboard, with a robust back-end that empowers us as a lender to make quick and accurate decisions.
“In just a couple of months, the buy to let market will take yet another step toward greater specialisation, and I hope this tech-driven solution will quickly become the gold standard for brokers coming to terms with the new rules.”
Mark Blackwell, Lending and Surveying Services Director, eTech, added: “We are delighted to be working with OSB to deliver the industry standard Buy to Let Hub. We have worked collaboratively to provide a solution that supports brokers and landlords and helps make OSB easy to deal with in a market becoming ever more specialist.
“We build software to manage property risk and improve efficiency. This is the start of the digital journey with the Hub with several more phases to follow after September that will deliver more enhancements to the specialist lending market.”
Steve Olejnik, Mortgages for Business COO, says OSB is blazing a trail amongst the specialist lenders, creating not just a solution to accommodate the new PRA requirements, but also having the foresight to include input from brokers to ensure that the technology is fit for purpose.
He added: "From our perspective, forewarned is forearmed. OSB's proactivity has helped us to prepare our customers and our processes for the increased administrative burden that all brokers will be required to undertake on the journey to get deals over the line from October onwards.”