Darlington Building Society is a specialist lender who operate in both the standard and more specialist areas of the mortgage sector.
They pride themselves on taking a personal approach to their members, and being a building society allows them to turn their profits into cost savings for their customers, as well as support for the local community.
Choosing LendingMetrics
Darlington had decided to utilise financial services provider Iress’ software, and, in doing so, were introduced to the benefits of assisted underwriting technology. LendingMetrics was recommended by Iress, who commended how flexible the company’s solutions are and how they are able to cater to individual needs rather than being a static “out of the box” system.
Darlington’s main motivation was to maintain their ability to review individual applications whilst removing the unnecessarily manual parts of the process. LendingMetrics’ ADP allows for assisted decisioning, meaning that Darlington could continue to take a personal approach to their decision making. Darlington aim to listen to the story behind the application, ensuring they fully understand the context and complexity of any situation before making a lending decision. ADP allows Darlington to concentrate on making those assessments without losing their personal touch.
The experience
When establishing the relationship with LendingMetrics, the lender felt it was important that they fully understood their requirements and business model, and LendingMetrics’ dedicated Project Manager and team of Business Analysts factored this in from the start.
With the help of the LendingMetrics team, we have developed a solution that will allow us to focus on the details of the case and arrive at a decision quickly.
The project was structured around the client, with their goals at the forefront, and LendingMetrics’ personalised approach allowed them to be effectively delivered.
Darlington values their underwriters’ knowledge of policies and, as a result, their first class decision making. By using ADP to assist this approach, Darlington could reduce the time to decision without having to standardise their lending, providing their brokers with a more efficient route. This allows their underwriters to focus on the areas that need more consideration, without the need to use credit scoring. Another benefit is that brokers will receive immediate feedback, establishing better relationships and further speeding up processes.
Working with Darlington has been enjoyable and has provided us with a great opportunity to really see how ADP can be effectively used for assisted - as well as automated – decisioning, alongside manual underwriting. We’re looking forward to seeing the integration go live and for Darlington to fully utilise the benefits of our multi-award-winning solutions.
Next steps
The building society is currently in the final UAT stage of the project, following an efficient implementation process, which has been the turning point for the provider as their team have started to really get to grips with the system and are beginning to reap the rewards. Darlington’s full integration with ADP will soon be live and they are excited to see what the future holds when the system is rolled out completely.
Darren Ditchburn, Chief Customer Officer at Darlington Building Society, said "When we first started to work with LendingMetrics we saw the potential of assisted decision engines and the benefits they would bring our business. We pride ourselves on the level of service and personal approach we have on each case and, with the help of the LendingMetrics team, believe we have developed a solution that will allow us to focus on the details of the case and arrive at a decision quickly, in a way that maintains our quality of service".
