JLMlaunchesVirtual Adviser

Virtual Adviser provides clients seeking residential or buy-to-let mortgage advice with the opportunity to start their journey through therobo service, engaging online initially. Users can search for products without registering details.

JLMlaunchesVirtual Adviser

JLM Mortgage Serviceshas becomethe first network in the UK to launcharobo mortgage advice proposition.

Virtual Adviser provides clients seeking residential or buy-to-let mortgage advice with the opportunity to start their journey through therobo service, engaging online initially. Users can search for products without registering details.

Virtual Adviser takes the client through some initial steps regarding their needs and works through the responses to provide some indicative product details that the client might be eligible for.

Users can have a mortgage illustration in their inbox in five minutes by completing the simple, three-stage process that filters down to more specific details to refine the product list.

At the end of this part of the process, the client can then choose to stay online with the virtual adviser, providing further details or they can talk to a JLM adviser directly.

Giving more information to the Virtual Adviser, like income and outgoing financial information, allows it to provide a more tailored and specific range of product options for the client and a mortgage illustration.

Rory Joseph, director of JLM Mortgage Services, said: “We believe the launch of Virtual Adviser is a first in the mortgage network market and sets the bar incredibly high for robo advice propositions.

“The team at JLM have been working on this launch for some time as part of enhancing our customer-facing proposition, and it’s thrilling to be able to present this to market.

“It’s very important that we recognise the varying ways clients want to engage with their advice needs and to provide them with the tools to begin arranging their mortgage at a time which suits them, not just when it’s convenient for us as the adviser.

“That being the case, we’ve developed Virtual Adviser as a simple, easy to use proposition that allows customers to begin the mortgage process on their terms at their own convenience, be that simply comparing initial mortgage product details or producing a full mortgage illustration.”

JLM plan upgrades to it and plan to recruit more advisers in order to service the increase in anticipated business generated by Virtual Adviser.

Sebastian Murphy, head of mortgage finance at JLM Mortgage Services, added: “We believe established advisers have a competitive advantage in terms of their experience and their understanding of client’s often complex wants and needs.

“However, thinking of our own ‘purchasing’ experience, we know that the convenience of (at the very least) starting the process online can be very appealing to large numbers of clients.

“We do tend to think that, with a financial commitment as big as a mortgage, most clients will not want to go through the whole process online and they’ll want to speak to a real person in order to have full confidence in what they’re signing up to.

“But, that doesn’t mean they won’t want to engage online, provide some of the information we require and receive an initial idea of what is available to them.”