14 Jan 2020
Legal & General Mortgage Club has today announced that later life lending has been added to SmartrCriteria, its digital, user-friendly criteria search system. Advisers will be able to use the tool to help determine the best possible outcome for their clients who will still have a mortgage when they are retired by searching a wide range of criteria including property types, tenure and adverse credit issues. SmartrCriteria includes information from over 100 lenders across the Residential, Buy to Let and New Build sectors to help advisers determine whether a particular lender would consider a mortgage application from their client.
SmartrCriteria was launched in January 2019 and since then Legal & General Mortgage Club has sought feedback to make a series of improvements to the tool to increase support for advisers. Following the launch of the system which draws on a decade of Mortgage Club data, the number of lender criteria outcomes has grown from 384,000 to 606,015, significantly increasing the system’s depth. There is also an improved search facility, as well as an adviser journey which gives members the information they need to progress their customer cases. Since its launch, SmartrCriteria has proved a popular tool with advisers, with over 6000 advisers registering to use the system. As part of the Club’s commitment to supporting advisers with digital transformation, SmartrCriteria is also free for Legal & General Mortgage Club members throughout 2020.
Legal & General Mortgage Club will continue to make further improvements to the tool and from this month lenders will also be able to update the system directly, ensuring that advisers using SmartrCriteria have the most up to date information available.
Kevin Roberts, Director, Legal & General Mortgage Club: "It’s been a year since we launched SmartrCriteria. Since then, we’ve listened to our members and focused on continually evolving the tool. This is now a rich database with more than 600,000 lender outcomes, providing a smarter way for advisers to keep on top of lender criteria changes and easily find the right mortgage for their clients. With the addition of later life lending, our members will now be able to easily find the right solutions for clients who are retired.SmartrCriteria is a great example of the type of digital transformation which is key to driving a frictionless mortgage journey, while helping advisers to spend more time doing what they do best – giving quality advice to borrowers. Over the next year, we’ll continue to make enhancements to SmartrCriteria to support the best possible outcomes for advisers and their clients, and with the tool being free for 2020 it’s a great time to give it a try!"
Established in 1836, Legal & General is one of the UK's leading financial services groups and a major global investor, with £1.2 trillion in total assets under management1 of which 40% is international. We have a unique and highly synergistic business model, which continues to drive strong returns. Legal & General provides powerful asset origination and management capabilities directly to clients, which also underpin our leading retirement and protection solutions. We are a leading international player in Pension Risk Transfer, in UK and US life insurance, and in UK workplace pensions and retirement income. Our purpose is to improve the lives of our customers and create value for our shareholders. Through inclusive capitalism, we are investing in long-term assets, such as real estate and infrastructure, that can help build a better society for the future.
1Data as at 31 December 2023.
Legal & General Mortgage Club is one of the UK’s largest and longest-running mortgage clubs, completing £667bn of mortgages since 1995. We are involved in nearly one in five of all mortgages in the UK, in addition to nearly one in three of all intermediated mortgages. The Mortgage Club prides itself on adding value to the adviser community by working closely with new and existing lenders to deliver great products, pricing and criteria. Our popular SmartrFit tool, which is free to advisers, combines an affordability calculator with lender criteria to provide accurate, quick results, to help make advisers jobs easier so they can spend time where it matters.