Kensington Mortgages December 2020

UNDERGOING A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Kensington Mortgages

IN ASSOCIATION WITH DIGITAL REPORT 2020

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KENSINGTON MORTGAGES: UNDERGOING A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

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KENSINGTON MORTGAGES

VICKI HARRIS, CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER AT KENSINGTON MORTGAGES, DISCUSSES DIGITAL DISRUPTION IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY

K

Kensington Mortgages is the largest independent mortgage lender in the UK and specialises in mortgages for borrow-

ers with more complex income profiles – such as the self-employed or people with multiple sources of income – who find it difficult to get a mortgage 04

from one of the High Street lenders.

Vicki Harris is the Chief Commercial Officer at Kensington Mortgages. Having joined the organisation in 2018, Harris is responsible for driving growth and innovation at the firm. Over the past few years, Harris believes her organisation has undergone not just a digital transformation but a business-wide one too. “When I joined, we took a step back and asked the question: what is the purpose of our organisation? We spent quite a lot of time understanding this and defining what makes us different - and from that, we updated our strategy and refreshed our brand and values,” she explains. “We then used that as the driving factor to kick off a range of initiatives across the business including building out our digital capabilities. A lot

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“I THINK IT’S A REALLY EXCITING TIME FOR THE SECTOR AND WE’RE ON THE CUSP OF DISRUPTION” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages

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KENSINGTON MORTGAGES

Kensington Mortgages Home of the Specialist Mortgage CLICK TO WATCH

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1:56

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“ I THINK THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY MORE GENERALLY IS ONE OF THE FEW AREAS OF RETAIL FINANCIAL SERVICES THAT HASN’T BEEN DISRUPTED YET” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages

of it was around how we think about the business, our people and how we can be more agile in our decision-making. It was far broader than just digital, although that was a key part of it.”

On the digital side, Kensington Mortgages has been working very closely with SOPRA Banking Software to develop a new core platform. Unlike many of the older systems currently in use across the industry, it is built around a modular and flexible architecture that will allow the company to make changes to products, pricing and processes very rapidly. “It’s been

a massive project that has finally gone

months of bank statements. We now

live over the past few weeks. We are

use APIs a lot more to access third

now working hard to build out a range

party data. And we’re in the process

of new and exciting products and

of rebuilding our website so we can

refine our pricing approach accord-

engage more directly with customers.

ingly.,” explains Harris. “We will gather

I think the mortgage industry more

lots more information as we look to

generally is one of the few areas in

underwrite new borrowing through

retail financial services that hasn’t

things like open banking rather than

been disrupted yet but this is coming

expecting customers to provide

and we need to be ready for it.”

E X E C U T I V E P R O FILE :

Vicki Harris Title: Chief Commercial Officer

07 Industry: Financial Services

Location: London Vicki joined Kensington in April 2018 and as Chief Commercial Officer is responsible for driving strategy, growth and innovation across the Group.

Prior to Kensington, Vicki was Group Head of Strategy and Marketing at Aldermore Bank, one of the original challenger banks post the 2009 financial crisis which successfully IPO’d on the London Stock Exchange in 2015.

This followed 3 years as COO of Octopus Investments, one of the fastest growing and most innovative wealth management companies in the UK. She previously spent time across a variety of roles in GE Capital and 4 years as a consultant at McKinsey. www.k e nsi ngt o nmo rt ga ges . co. u k

POWERING UP YOUR PEOPLE Providing ever-evolving mortgage software solutions means your people can increase the speed, volume and accuracy of mortgage applications for the most important people of all – your customers. This means improved efficiency and increased margins for your business, both now and in the future.

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Enhance your customer experience We give you access to a range of digital assets and work collaboratively to develop new propositions to innovate across the end-to-end digital journey. Together we create unique, customised journeys for your customers and brokers. Our in house experience design consultants (CX Partners) will guide you through our process of research, prototyping and consumer testing.

Constantly innovate We are committed to innovation and iteration.

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That’s why we are part of the ‘Chemistry

Find out how we recently upgraded KMC onto our new digital mortgage platform

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Provide dynamic digital solutions, today and tomorrow In response to evolving customer and market requirements, our product environment enables new product offerings and mortgage application journeys to be created and updated in digital timelines. Our unique branding and design system lets you build, test and roll-out new customer experiences faster than ever before.

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KENSINGTON MORTGAGES

“ WE’RE IN THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING OUR WEBSITE SO WE CAN ENGAGE MORE DIRECTLY WITH CUSTOMERS” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages

All of Kensington’s mortgages are analysed by VECTOR, which is a proprietary and powerful analytical model that is embedded into all phases of the mortgage lifecycle. “VECTOR has a massive database spanning the last 25 years with over a million data points showing how loans have behaved in different macroeconomic environments,” says Harris. “We have an AI platform that allows us to use VECTOR to help us understand

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Kensington Mortgages We look for ways to say YES CLICK TO WATCH

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1:16

11 how our loans will perform over time

are the one area where it now takes

depending on different economic sce-

longer than it did before.

narios. This also gives us an edge to develop new products.”

“People used to go to their bank branch more often, so back in the 90s

Harris is well aware that mortgages

if you wanted a mortgage you went to

generally are one of the last remaining

see your branch manager, you talked

areas that are yet to be innovated. “I

them through what you needed and

saw a chart recently that showed in

they had the power to make a decision.

1990, it took a week to buy an airline

It happened quite quickly because it

ticket, two weeks to get new house

was done locally, even though it wasn’t

insurance and three weeks to get a

done digitally. However, what has hap-

car loan,” she explains. “But, all those

pened over the past 15/20 years is that

things have moved from weeks to sec-

the bank has taken away that power

onds as you do them online, whereas

from the branches, it’s all centralised

mortgages, which used to take days,

and has been digitised. You go into www.k e nsi ngt o nmo rt ga ges . co. u k

KENSINGTON MORTGAGES

some central process within the bank

years will hold for her organisation

with people that don’t understand

and the industry itself. “I think it’s a

individual circumstances and you

really exciting time for the sector

often end up with a ‘computer says

and we’re on the cusp of disruption,”

no’ approach. Taking out a mortgage

she explains. “Kensington is cur-

is a complex process, much more so

rently growing at 30% year on year

than perhaps getting a car loan. You

and we expect the growth of digital

have to value the property and try to

within the industry to only accelerate

consider whether the person involved

post-COVID. We also anticipate an

can sustain paying a mortgage for the

increasing need for specialist mort-

next 25 years.”

gage lending as people’s financial

As Kensington gears up to celebrate 12

situations become more complex.

its 25th year anniversary in December,

Coming out of COVID, there are

Harris is looking to the future and is

going to be a lot of people that were

optimistic about what the next few

on furlough or had to take a payment

Kensington Mortgages: Using data to write better mortgages CLICK TO WATCH

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“ CUSTOMERS ARE DEMANDING THAT WE DO THINGS IN DIFFERENT WAYS AND IT’S TIME TO START ADDRESSING THAT” — Vicki Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Kensington Mortgages

holiday where it’s going to take more time to underwrite them. I think there will be a much more customer-focused approach and we have a number of new products in the pipeline to allow younger people to get on the housing ladder. Customers are demanding that we do things in different ways and it’s time to start addressing that. The future is bright.”

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KENSINGTON MORTGAGES Ascot House Maidenhead Office Park Maidenhead SL6 3QQ

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