Habito unleashes Digital Mortgage Adviser

Source: Habito

UK tech startup, habito, has launched the world’s first artificially intelligent Digital Mortgage Adviser (DMA) allowing millions of consumers to discuss their mortgage needs from any connected device, 24/7, without requiring a human broker.

Built using AI technology and habito’s market-leading algorithm, the DMA marries all the elements of a customer’s financial life (e.g. employment, salary and personal life plans) with real-time market mortgage rates to calculate an indicative monthly payment. The DMA explains the impact consumers’ decisions will have on each mortgage configuration as a traditional mortgage broker would, but in a fraction of the time (average 10 minutes). Habito has the ability to search hundreds of products (versus a handful), so once the advice is complete consumers can be sure they’re on the best mortgage for them, which can result in savings of thousands of pounds per year*.

In designing the new system, habito analysed hundreds of advice interviews in order to understand what consumers needed and what formed the basis of informative advice. As a result, the DMA’s chat-like interface provides an unbiased, conversational experience, without the need for lengthy in-person queues, waiting on hold or paying a premium for advice.

“Finding the right mortgage product in the UK is like finding a needle in a haystack. Britons are crying out for some innovation and clarity in an outdated and overwhelming mortgage market,” said Daniel Hegarty, CEO and Founder, habito. “Our digital mortgage adviser is a huge step forward in making mortgage advice accessible for consumers in the way they need it most: unbiased, always available and most importantly free.”

Habito’s digital mortgage adviser is a direct response to the FCA’s Financial Advice Market Review Report calling for greater, more accessible financial services advice for British consumers. Habito plans to roll out additional interactive features later this year, such as remortgage alerts, that will continue to optimise the mortgage application process for consumers across the country.

Comments: (1)

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 12 September, 2016, 12:14Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

This is quite a misleading thing to say, as I'm currently half way through a Habito process, and I'm now at the point where I need to speak to an adviser. "Now it's time for you to discuss your preferences with one of our mortgage experts, so that we can start finding you the best possible mortgage right away. This will only take around 10 minutes and you can either do it over the phone or in a live online chat. Which would you prefer?"

The process to get to that point was very slick (quite time consuming though), but it's just the first half of a fact find where they capture hard facts (no where near enough to place a deal with a lender mind you) discuss the customer's needs and preferences and give them some indicative information about monthly payments based on different scenarios such as rate and term. After this you get the prompt to get human advice.

A human adviser offer and record all this upfront information just as quickly, but also more flexibly and accurately over the phone or face-to-face before getting to the nitty-gritty of actually advising the customer, which the likes of Habito and Trussle are going to have to do in real-life, as currently the lending market is far too fragmented to a deliver straight-through all-online process. The vast majority of mortgage advisers do this bit of the process at their cost too.