Price comparison website Moneysupermarket is moving into the mortgage market, setting up a joint venture with the founders of HD Decisions to enable consumers to search for, and apply, for a home loan online.
The new joint venture, Podium, comes amid a wave of disruption in the traditionally paper-based mortgage market which has seen a rash of new entrants in recent months.
Moneysupermarket already attracts up to 16 million visitors to its mortgage website each year - representing around 25% of mortgage search traffic. Traditionally users find the best loan to suit their needs and complete the deal offsite with a third party mortgage broker. Podium's aim is to act as an onsite mortgage broker, digitising the application process and doing away with the paper trail.
"We all know finding a better mortgage is complicated," says Moneysupermarket chief Mark Lewis. "Customers are already looking to us for help with mortgages. We said we would do something about this and today we announce Podium, a new mortgage fintech, to build a comparison tool to bring customers the digitisation of mortgages - an easier and better way to arrange the mortgage that suits them."
Podium forms part of Moneysupermarket's 'Reinvent' strategy, extending the firm's remit into the provision of financial services. The group is midway through a £5 million spend to re-engineer its technology platform and unlock new opportunities for growth.