LENGTHY mortgage approval processes could soon be replaced with artificial intelligence giving a fast-action decision in seconds. But experts are warning of the need to “keep a human in the loop to sanity-check the logic, unless you want to automate disappointment” in home buying.
Mortgages “aren’t takeaway orders and turning them into one is how you end up with a misselling scandal to rival PPI”, one expert said.
Another said you could get into a dangerous situation where you “spin the ‘review the customer circumstances’ wheel twice with the same mortgage application and get different answers”.
According to a story in The Banker, giant Dutch lender, ING Bank, is reportedly considering using agentic AI – a type of AI that can independently plan, reason and take actions to achieve complex goals with minimal human oversight – in its mortgage decision-making.
ING Bank suggests using agentic AI this way could shave the time needed for the mortgage approval process – which can take weeks, and in some more complex cases months – down to just minutes.
The bank is reportedly incorporating 140 different checks into its review of using agentic AI in mortgage cases.
Responsible AI
A spokesperson for ING Bank told Newspage: “Starting in 2026, we will use agentic AI to initiate and complete mortgage applications in the Netherlands, transforming how we engage with customers by automating data collection and credit checks — while ensuring that personal advice remains human-led.”
The bank is currently testing agentic AI with voice agents, with pilots underway in Spain and Germany, to handle routine call centre tasks using advanced speech technology.
The ING spokesperson added: “Gen AI has a huge potential to improve our ability to provide solutions to our customers. We use this in a responsible way. Model ethics and securing the privacy of our customers, protecting their data, are key pillars to our responsible AI approach.”
But experts said lenders should be wary of handing too much control over to automated computer decision-makers.
‘Computer says no’
Rohit Parmar-Mistry, Founder at Burton-on-Trent-based Pattrn Data, an AI consultancy, said: “We are in danger of sleepwalking into a real-life Little Britain sketch of ‘Computer Says No’.
“The promise of ‘mortgages in minutes’ sounds brilliant. Right up until you get a rejection that nobody, not even the bank manager, can actually explain.
“ING is trying to put a seatbelt on this, which is encouraging. They’ve reportedly implemented 140 safety checks, which is far more diligence than we usually see. But only time will tell if those safety nets actually hold up when thousands of messy and complex human applications hit the system at speed.”
“Unless you want to automate disappointment, you must keep a human in the loop to sanity-check the logic.”
Patricia McGirr, Founder at Burnley-based Repossession Rescue Network, said that “mortgages aren’t takeaway orders, and turning them into one is how you end up with a misselling scandal to rival PPI”.
“The real danger is lenders chasing minutes to approval without asking what gets lost in the rush. A mortgage is a 25-year commitment. It must be measured, explained and right the first time.
“Without that, customers end up shouting at the ghost in the machine when the algorithm says ‘no’. Tech should support good decisions, not see them as a transaction where speed is the key metric.”
Spin the wheel
Colette Mason, Author & AI Consultant at London-based Clever Clogs AI, is concerned AI won’t create the same output twice when the task is complicated, as it often is with mortgage applications. This, she added, creates the risk it will unfairly discriminate against certain borrowers.
She said: “Spin the ‘review the customer circumstances’ wheel twice with the same mortgage application and get different answers? How does a bank prove in court they made the right decision and not the biased or inappropriate one?”
Automating lending decisions when the system can’t show its working and “might be baking in postcode discrimination” is “liability roulette” for banks and other lenders, Mason said.
Two-tier highway
Mitali Deypurkaystha, Human-First AI Strategist & Author at Newcastle upon Tyne-based Impact Icon AI, called cutting mortgage approvals from months to minutes exciting — “only if we don’t turn the housing market into a two-tier highway”.
“She continued: “AI is a car: powerful, fast and game-changing. But it runs on fuel, our data. If that data is biased, the engine doesn’t just misfire, it drives some people off the road entirely.”
She said we’ve “already seen the warning lights”. Citizens Advice exposed an ethnicity penalty in car insurance. Also, the UK’s National Physical Laboratory found facial-recognition systems misidentify Black faces 5.5% of the time and Asian faces 4%, compared to 0.04% for white faces.
Deypurkaystha said: “That’s not a glitch, it’s a mirror. If we rush mortgage automation without guardrails, we risk a future where some buyers get keys in minutes while others hit invisible walls. AI should lift all boats, not widen the wealth gap at machine speed.”
Photo by Morgan Bryan on Unsplash
