Digitising the mortgage application process

The Challenge

John Charcol is a leading independent mortgage advisor in the UK, with offices in London, Southampton, Birmingham and Newcastle. With over 40 years experience they help thousands of people each year to find the right mortgage. To meet their ‘Know Your Customer’ and ‘Anti Money Laundering’ obligations, an advisor must verify each applicant’s identity before proceeding with an application. Traditionally this process requires either an in person visit or a trip to a specialist Post Office (with an associated fee to the applicant). This process is time consuming and costly and also causes a break in momentum in the overall mortgage application process.

As part of their ongoing Digital Transformation programme John Charcol wanted to streamline this process, to provide a better User Experience to their customers and improve internal efficiency.

The Solution

A mobile app that could be used by customers to quickly provide proof of identity at a time and place that was convenient to them. The app also presented customers with a tailored list of additional documentation that is required in order to source the right product.

In addition to the mobile app, an internal web based app was also created to provide an admin interface to the system. This dashboard provided advisors with a simple way to initiate ID checks and to customise the list of documents that each applicant was required to provide.

To ensure that the ID checks met regulatory compliance, John Charcol partnered with Onfido, an industry leading provider of electronic identification. The app integrated with the Onfido SDK providing a seamless experience across both iOS & Android.

The Results

• >4000 Mortgages completed during the first COVID-19 lockdown that would otherwise not have been possible
• ID Verification & Document collection reduced from an average of 9 working days to <1 day
• Document submission made simpler for customers
• ROI in under 12 months of rollout

Pipedrive Integration

We integrated the system with John Charcol’s CRM, Pipedrive, which enabled a streamlined internal workflow to be created around tools their team already used. Leveraging automation, we were able to reduce error-prone manual tasks and to ensure that all information gathered by the app was securely stored against the customer records in the CRM.

Pipedrive App Panel

Create and monitor applicant ID checks from within the CRM utilising a custom App Panel from within Pipedrive.