Progressive Building Society improves mortgage application process with TietoEnator Mortgage Sales Portal

To enhance the service offered to its mortgage introducers and provide them with another channel for doing business with the Society, Progressive Building Society today announced that it has purchased the TietoEnator Mortgage Sales Portal. The TietoEnator system will enable Progressive’s introducers to manage a number of key processes online – the production of KFIs, the submission and tracking of mortgage applications.



“We looked at a number of systems and found them to be broadly similar, but we selected the TietoEnator system because it offers us a true straight through process and integrates seamlessly with our existing TietoEnator infrastructure” said Tommy O’Neill, Head of IT, Progressive Building Society.



The majority of Progressive mortgages are introduced rather than directly sold to the customer and it is therefore imperative that the Society offers the best possible service to its introducers. “Many of our introducers are expecting to do more and more of their business online and we simply have to move forward to enable them to offer their own customers a superior service” explained Tommy O’Neill. “The TietoEnator Mortgage Sales Portal will allow us to significantly reduce the time taken to process a mortgage and enable introducers to access and track each application online.”



Using TietoEnator’s Mortgage Sales Portal, the introducer will access the Progressive website and complete the details required to produce an online KFI in real time. The introducer can then progress immediately to the application stage, again completing all the documentation online. Once submitted, the application information will pass through into the existing TietoEnator mortgage administration system without having to be re-keyed either at the branch or in Head Office.



“We will all benefit from the introduction of Mortgage Sales Portal” said Tommy O’Neill. “Introducers and customers will receive a faster, more efficient and accurate service and the Society will spend significantly less time on mortgage administration, allowing us the opportunity to grow our direct sales channel.”



Commenting on the contract with The Progressive Building Society, Richard Gammon, Managing Director, TietoEnator Financial Solutions UK said, “I’m delighted that Progressive has selected a TietoEnator front end to complement its existing TietoEnator infrastructure. Building Societies cannot afford to take a back seat when it comes to offering online services to introducers - very soon we’ll have a situation where the introducer will stop referring business to those societies that have not moved with the times.”

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Portman to make 500 redundancies

Portman says it expects to make nearly 500 staff redundant as a result of the merger with Nationwide.



The society will close its administration offices based in Wolverhampton, and says it is likely that the 250 staff who work there will lose their jobs.



The society also anticipates that there will be more redundancies in its Bournemouth offices.

Despite there being 1,100 people working there at present it expects this will fall to 850.

Portman has revealed that it is in the process of distributing approximately 1.2 million merger booklet packs in advance of the Portman annual general meeting, which is to be held on April 23 2007.



Following the announcement, on September 12 2006, of the proposal to merge Nationwide and Portman, the boards of the two societies are now able to communicate further details.

The Portman merger booklet pack will cover, AGM resolutions and voting, proposed merger process and rationale, bonus details for qualifying Portman members and information for Portman savers and borrowers.



Robert Sharpe, chief executive of Portman, says: "Merging two of the largest and most successful building societies will create a mutual of impressive strength and size in the UK retail mortgage and savings market.



“I believe this is a great deal for Portman members. They will enjoy an ongoing interest in the enlarged society and will benefit from a greatly increased branch network spanning the country.



“They will also have access to a wider range of attractively priced products, together with more comprehensive telephone and internet banking services.



“Qualifying members will receive a pre-tax merger bonus of between £200 and £1,000, if they are a saver, and £200 if they are a borrower."



Graham Beale, chief executive designate of Nationwide, says: "We believe that Nationwide has a great deal to offer the members of Portman.



“The enlarged society, with its strong commitment to mutuality, will be in an even stronger position to deliver real value to its members through better product pricing and excellent service.



“As the UK's largest mutual we continue to provide a compelling alternative to the big retail banks."

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Temenos adds 41 new clients in 2006, secures prime position in IBS Sales League Table

Temenos Group (SWX: TEMN), the provider of integrated core banking systems, today announced that IBS Publishing has ranked Temenos T24™ (T24) in second place in its Sales League Table 2006 in the universal banking category. Take up for T24 saw a 25% increase in 2006 with 40 new clients, giving it a customer-base of 440 banks in this category, the largest of any core banking product. The report also records one sale of Temenos™ CoreBanking (TCB) with a retail client base of 79.



Temenos has appeared in the top two positions of the league table for eight of the last nine years. Andreas Andreades, CEO, Temenos, says: “Our consistency in serving our industry over the past 10 years has been recognised with our placing in the IBS league report. I personally want to thank all our clients that have placed their trust in us for their commitment and support. The strong revenues yielded from our growing raft of tier 1 and 2 wins ensure that we’re able to invest 20% of turnover in R a higher rate than any of our competitors. That we can then roll out this rich functionality to our entire client base gives us our unique business model.”



During the past two years, Temenos has announced eight tier 1 wins with banks such as Deutsche Bank, Fortis and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.



Having the largest client base across all banking verticals has put Temenos in the best position to launch Temenos Model Bank in 2006. Temenos Model Bank delivers T24 with mostly pre-configured, pre-parametered features and incorporates a global best practice standard that achieves 50% lower implementation time frames. Temenos Model Bank and the associated implementation methodology minimises customisation, reduces costs and also brings tighter controls over project scope and deliverables. The overall result is a quick and safe implementation.



T24 is a functionally rich, thin client, scalable, integrated, modular banking system. It is built on open service oriented architecture, and uses established technology standards such as HTTP, XML and HTML. It offers a single client view across the enterprise and can support large numbers of users with true non-stop resilience. Its fully-integrated architecture enables it to offer a significant cost advantage compared to other competing products. It offers multiple application server support and is the only system available with no end-of-day batch processing and so can genuinely boast of providing real-time 24/7 non-stop banking.

TCB is a modern, scalable retail banking platform that is capable of handling mass-scale business volumes of the very largest banks worldwide. It offers all the functionality required by operations on this scale, but at a greatly reduced cost of transactions and operations compared with other, less efficient solutions. Above all, TCB is a multi-bank system in a single software image that enables banks to develop new products across many channels quickly and cost-effectively.

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Britannia and EBS to launch Irish mortgage JV

Britannia is in advanced talks with Irish mutual EBS to set up a new full service joint venture focussing on the Irish mortgage intermediary market.



The plans entail combining the award-winning expertise of Platform, the intermediary lender of Britannia, with EBS's strong reputation and sales network in Ireland.



Both societies see brokers taking a bigger share of the residential mortgage market in Ireland, as they have in the UK, and see significant opportunities for growth in the broker market.



Britannia Group chief executive Neville Richardson says the proposed JV was an exciting prospect for Britannia, as it would be the first time the Group had operated in residential mortgage markets outside the UK.



He says: "This has the potential to be a very successful and profitable venture for both parties, adding significant value for Britannia's members in the UK and EBS's members in Ireland. EBS shares similar values to Britannia and is very strong in the Irish market. The venture will allow us to exploit Platform's renowned expertise in serving the intermediary sector in a completely new market.”



EBS chief executive Ted McGovern says Britannia's success in the UK intermediary market made it the perfect partner for EBS.



He adds: “In Britannia we see both complementary capabilities and, being a committed mutual like ourselves, a very compatible business philosophy, ethos and values.

“EBS has just completed a successful first full year in the broker market. We believe that, going forward, this channel will account for an even bigger proportion of the overall residential mortgage market in Ireland.



"In order to fully avail of these opportunities I am delighted to confirm that EBS and Britannia Building Society are in advanced discussions to create a joint venture which will serve this market.”



The joint venture will leverage EBS' local market knowledge, established distribution presence and reputation as well as Britannia's experience of intermediary channels.

Discussions have opened with the Irish Financial Regulator and, subject to regulatory approval, the JV is expected to be in operation in the second half of the year.

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Moneyfacts opening up loan system

Moneyfacts is set to take on Mortgage Brain and Trigold with a full application and sourcing system for mortgage brokers.



The firm already runs a limited sourcing engine for intermediaries called eMoneyfacts used by 8,000 brokers but is planning a complete revamp of its system.



Brokers have welcomed the move as it will provide much needed competition if Mortgage Brain and Trigold merge.



The present eMoneyfacts system is not linked to lenders' back offices and so a full application is not yet possible.



The first phase of its five-stage revamp, which will be completed in the second quarter, will speed up navigation of the website but enhancements will be not be complete until early next year.



It will also display savings, loans, credit card and current accounts products.

Head of eMoneyfacts Paul Yallop says: "The new system will be linked to lenders' back offices to do the processing."

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Nationwide announces new intermediary team

Nationwide Building Society has revealed that subject to its proposed merger with Portman Building Society going ahead, it is to create a new team of senior management dedicated to intermediary markets and specialist lending.



Heading up the team will be Matthew Wyles, who will become a group executive director, with Peter Leydon taking on the role of divisional director intermediary markets and Andy McQueen becoming divisional director specialist lending.



This is the first time Nationwide will have appointed a main board director to concentrate exclusively on intermediated mortgage business across the entire Group's spectrum of activity including commercial lending. Wyles' and McQueen's appointments will take effect from the date of the proposed merger (expected to be 28 August 2007) and Leydon's appointment will take effect from 1 April 2007.

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Britannia buoyant after lending leap in 2006

Britannia Building Society has seen mortgage lending beat average market growth levels, while profits were also up.



The lender saw gross mortgage lending up 22 per cent to £8.4bn in 2006, with profits up from £120.5m in 2005 to £130.4m.



The society says its intermediary lender Platform improved its product range and saw enhancements over the year such as the launch clickapplication, a new online application process, alongside the clickdecision online decision in principle service.



Britannia chief executive Neville Richardson said: "Britannia's record results reflect a growing business that is delivering for its members. Sales of mortgages, personal loans, investment and insurance were increased in an immensely competitive market. This is thanks to our people who are fully engaged, skilled and dedicated in a way few companies can match."

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