ICS Building Society has invested €250,000 in a new system that allows mortgage brokers to submit applications through a secure internet channel and ensure credit decisions within 24 hours.
The development, which represents a first for both the Irish and the European financial services industries, is called ICS4Brokers and was developed by ICS over a 12-month period in conjunction with internet security specialists Hush Communications.
“We estimate that the turnaround time for a broker processing an ICS mortgage will be three days less than for any other provider in the Irish market,” says Jackie Gilmore, product development and distribution manager at ICS.
ICS4Brokers responds to a recognised need in the financial intermediary market for a faster turnaround of applications. The building society estimates that the time it takes for a broker to revert to a client with approval will be reduced from an average of four days to 24 hours.
ICS will provide brokers with on-site training so they will have the ability to file and track applications on the system as well as submit information and receive decisions outside normal business hours.
The ICS4Brokers system was piloted with a group of 20 brokers over the past five months and since then it has been rolled out to over 80 brokers across the country. The building society estimates that some 500 brokers nationwide will avail of the service, the cost of which will be borne by ICS.
The president of the Irish Mortgage Advisers Federation (IMAF), Michael Dowling, said that the system recognised the need to improve the speed of delivery of mortgage decisions. “There is no doubt that the mortgage transaction as it currently stands is a very paper-based one. IMAF wants technology-based solutions to work and we fully support what ICS4Brokers will achieve,” Dowling said.
By John Kennedy
