It’s April already and, if you’re anything like my team, you’ve already had a busy first quarter of 2025. While inflation showed a certain stubbornness to shift downwards at the back end of winter, the latest March fall in the Consumer Price Index to 2.6% has raised speculation of a further cut in interest rates.
And only this week, the IMF has issued a prediction that the UK could see up to 3 interest rate drops in 2025.
Furthermore, the flurry of uncertainty caused by the round of Trump tariff declarations led to a drop in SONIA Swap rates, resulting in additional downward movement on those mortgage deals - creating a whole new raft of offers from lenders.
Finally, as if that wasn’t enough, it’s predicted that up to 1.8 million mortgage deals are due to expire in 2025, creating another rich seam of mortgage deal potential.
With so much potential new mortgage activity in the pipeline, and the mass of competing deals that will inevitably come to the market, getting your mortgage adviser workflow sorted is the only guaranteed way to stay ahead of the game.
The Binder mortgage adviser CRM portal was actually conceived during a quieter time when mortgage rates had settled around 2%, and before the seismic panic caused by the now infamous Liz Truss mini budget of 2022.
Fast forward to 2025, and we now have a feature-packed CRM system that is designed to optimise your workflow at every key touchpoint in the mortgage application process.
For the big mortgage adviser networks we know from our own experience that time and cost efficiencies are paramount. Managing your existing portfolio of clients while developing your bank of new mortgage customers is an essential balancing act for business survival. But we also know that, amongst all this, there are the additional responsibilities around FCA compliance and the more recently introduced obligations around Consumer Duty.
Integration with Intelliflo. We know all the major networks use the Intelliflo platform as the main framework for their CRM systems, so our first big design goal was to achieve integration. This now means that when you subscribe to the Binder portal that its operating efficiently through a platform that your team will be readily familiar with. Binder simply brings all your caseloads together in an access-anywhere portal that gives each of your mortgage advisers full control over the management of their clients.
“Binder’s integration with Intelliflo Office is first class. It allows advisers to interact with a tool designed specifically for mortgages, with all the data being synced with the back office.” Mike Phillips, Head of ASHL
Rapid, accurate, customer data gathering. Arguably, this is one of the most time consuming foundation areas of mortgage adviser ground work. Everything depends on timely and accurate data collection. For too long, network groups have had to grapple with generic financial services Fact Find templates that offer up too many data fields, many of which are not relevant to the very precise questions mortgage lenders are looking for.
Stop getting communication overload. The volume of communications generated by mortgage network groups over the course of a week or month is staggering. And with UK and global economics expected to see continuous flux in the market place, staying on top of your client comms is critical to completing each deal on time, while ensuring you remain FCA- compliant.
The Binder Chat function is a game changing feature that brings all your client communications together in a single funnel, so that you’re not grappling with texts, WhatsApp messages, emails and phone call messages. Plus, our latest feature notifies you when a client is active on the portal so that you can contact them while you’ve got their attention.
And when it comes to requesting supporting documentation, such as payslips or ID, all you do is click on the documents you need and your clients know which ones to upload next.
You can’t do everything. Delegate work functions to your admin team. Behind every successful network is the admin support team who play a behind the scenes role progressing every mortgage application. Our account holder function enables you to define user roles so that your admin team has delegated access to each of your cases, and can work on the non regulated areas without your attention. This means you’re spending more face to face time with both new and existing clients, and also meeting your Consumer Duty obligations rather than being tied to the laptop.
“Binder is really useful and makes processing/amending cases easier than it would have been if we were just using our back office CRM system. I particularly prefer the adding of documents and creating of the actual mortgage cases, which just syncs to our back office with a click”. Aidan, Mortgage Administrator, Ernest Grany Mortgages.
Performance and efficiency. Don’t guess it. Measure it. Our latest Binder Analytics function is designed to give both individual advisers and network groups the critical data they need to make informed decisions around tactics and strategies.
With the ability to collect metrics on the four key application stages (Application, Offer, Terms, Paid) both advisers and administrators can run key analytics on daily, weekly and monthly performance levels.
One final thought for every mortgage network group - with a market rich for picking those big money lenders could be after your business too.
With AI models, chat software and in-house legal teams, the big banks have got size, clout and scale to make significant inroads into intermediaries’ mortgage business. We haven’t quite got a full measure of how AI and other technologies will affect the mortgage adviser industry, but with that forecast of a record year for intermediary business, banks are going to want a slice of the cake too, as this Mortgage Strategy article explains.
Don’t panic, they’ve not arrived yet - but they’re advancing over the hills in the distance. Forewarned is forearmed - and with Binder on your side you really have got everything you need to stay ahead of the game.
Why not book a free 45 min demo to see how we can bring economies of scale, and cost efficiencies to your network.
“Binder has been a game changer for me as a mortgage adviser, freeing up invaluable time that I can now dedicate to my clients. The platform is smart, professional and incredibly user-friendly for both advisers and clients”. Chris Clegg, Independent Mortgage & Protection Adviser
