Newspage, the platform used by 000s of financial services professionals, has launched a new service for smaller building societies and lenders who want to enhance their relationships with the broker community — and stay visible at a time when technology and AI risks eroding their market share.
Lenders signing up to the Newspage ‘Broker Lab’ will be able to liaise with brokers in real time and seek valuable intel and insights directly from the Newspage intermediary community through the platform’s proprietary News Alerts.
They can use this intel to create or enhance products that brokers say borrowers want, whether that’s a niche holiday let product or a mortgage for people with minor credit blips.
Through its Broker Lab, Newspage can also facilitate Zoom calls for lenders with selected brokers at short notice during working hours, where they can receive constructive feedback on new or existing products and processes.
Smaller lenders can then promote their products directly to mortgage advisers nationwide or in specific locations through the Newspage platform where open rates on emails and mobile app push notifications are consistently above 50% — or, if they choose to, build stories with advisers that the Newspage news agency then feeds into relevant local, trade and national news media.
The news agency function is especially useful for smaller lenders who don’t have in-house comms teams or significant marketing budgets — and often fail to cut through the media noise.
Newspage Contributing Editor and EHF Mortgages MD, Justin Moy, said: “As technology develops and AI improves, smaller lenders, much like brokers, risk being drowned out or automated into oblivion by big, high street lenders. It’s something I know a lot of brokers are nervous about and it’s something that I’m sure many smaller lenders will have on their radars, too.
“Through the Newspage Broker Lab, smaller lenders will be able to seek rapid feedback from brokers, at scale, on new products they are building or existing products they are tweaking and then promote those products directly to brokers through Newspage or to the wider public through the Newspage news agency.
“It feels like we are at a crucial juncture in the mortgage world and it’s one where brokers and smaller lenders offering more niche products could converge and be stronger together. The Newspage Broker Lab is where that can happen.”
Newspage Founder, Dominic Hiatt, added: “We have a huge number of highly engaged brokers on our platform whose front-line intel and insights smaller lenders could be harnessing to build better products and create stronger intermediary relationships. Lenders can then promote those products to brokers regionally or nationally directly through Newspage, or to the wider public through our news agency that feeds all national and regional news media.
“Building societies or smaller lenders regularly come out with criteria tweaks or product launches that could benefit lots of borrowers but which will often be missed by national and local media because they are packaged up in a legacy press release format that doesn’t relay the positive consumer impact they have.
“I’ve lost count of the times one of our brokers has said to me, “this is a great adjustment”, and then we’ve brought the story to life through our News Alerts that invite brokers to share their views. The result is then a real buzz in the national or regional media that wouldn’t otherwise have been achieved.
“Through our Broker Lab, smaller lenders can embed themselves in the broker community and also massively boost their media firepower.”
Lenders wanting to join the Newspage Broker Lab should sign up to the platform as Contributing Editors, which enables them to create News Alerts and access intel from brokers effortlessly, in real time, which is only seen by them.
They also have access to Newspage’s team of journalists when they wish to build stories with practising mortgage advisers and promote them in local or national news media. The Contributing Editor subscription costs just £299.99+VAT pcm.
