My mother and father have their birthday on the same day which, in theory, should make it easy not to forget their birthday each year. Until two years ago that was the case but for the last two years I haven’t got a birthday card on time to them. Last year was down to my own brain ageing and slowing down but this year it was due to the postal strike. With my parents barely speaking to me now I can’t afford to miss next year’s birthday so I am going electronic and abandoning the Royal Mail.
With a backlog of £350m of mortgage deals lost in the post for over a week due to the recent action, brokers and clients are feeling similar pain. Of course the pain goes beyond mortgages to all classes of financial business but as mortgages are often so time critical the pain here is extremely tangible.
However electronic processing of mortgage new business has taken off in the last few years and the systems supporting this trend are getting ever more comprehensive. It is no longer about electronic form processing as lenders are frequently accepting electronic copies of the supporting documentation(either faxed or e-mailed).
The postal strike will have forced many brokers to use these services either for the first time ever or the first time for a while. It will be interesting to see if these brokers then go back to paper or embrace the new electronic world to avoid problems and delays in the future. My gut feeling is that like myself with birthday cards, I am sure the recent strikes will cause many to abandon traditional, paper routes and move electronic – the biggest loser in this – The Royal Mail and their workers.
