INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Habito, the London startup that has spent the last three years dragging the mortgage process online, is to begin direct lending via its own
regulatory approval to become a mortgage lender in its own right early last year.Eighteen months in the making, Habito says it has
developed a proprietary lending platform from scratch in order to be able to offer its own innovative mortgage products that plug some of
the gaps in the current market
Founder and CEO Daniel Hegarty tells me he hopes other lenders will eventually want to use the same rails to launch their own digital
lending products but in the meantime the company is excited to launch direct lending.Longer term, Hegarty says the idea is that a rising
tide in terms of customer experience and the speed and certainty smarter use of technology affords, will help to lift all boats within the
Values and fixed-rate periods currently on the market
Using its proprietary technology, Habito says it aims to cut the timeframe from mortgage application to offer in half.To do this, the Habito
platform integrates with the conveyancing process to add more transparency for the homebuyer, while the number of documents needed is said
to be significantly reduced
The fact that the FCA approved Habito becoming a lender alongside running its brokerage business is also noteworthy and suggests that the
How the wider market views the development by Habito to become a lender and a broker remains to be seen.Meanwhile, Habito says that company
buy-to-let and portfolio landlord mortgages will launch later this year
traditional financial footprint
Another opportunity the startup is eyeing up are mortgages with a much longer fixed term, which are more common in other countries but in
are typically restricted to two to three years.
