Mortgages study begins

Consumers could soon benefit from greater efficiency in the mortgage market, as a new benchmarking is carried out.

08:31 27 May 2004

Consumers could soon benefit from greater efficiency in the mortgage market, as a new benchmarking is carried out.

Marlborough Stirling, which provides solutions to the mortgage, pension and investment market sectors, has announced that 16 lenders have already indicated they will take part in its 2004 study.

The study enables lenders to identify and analyse their competitive position within the mortgage industry, providing them with a truly independent analysis against an industry benchmark.

They can then identify their areas of competitive advantage, increase efficiency and reduce costs - and so offer better services to consumers.

The product development director at Marlborough Stirling, Phil Heaton-Jones, said: "The benchmarking study is rapidly establishing itself as an invaluable research tool for mortgage lenders."

He continuing by pointing out that, "this year, participants will have the added benefit of being able to track the findings against those recorded last year. The success of last year's study has led to even more interest from lenders this year. We expect that the total number of participants will exceed twenty."

The study will benchmark the point of sale and application processing stages of the mortgage process, as well as looking at additional topics such as intermediary lending, further advance processing and management of redemptions.

Last year 13 lenders took part.