By Daniel Lanyon on Tuesday 8 November 2022
The mortgage market may be in disarray owing to a multitude of macroeconomic headwinds but Revolut’s CEO Nik Storonsky thinks it also needs a digital upgrade.
Revolut is well known for its culture of moving quickly.
Lending, however, one of the most traditional banking activities, has always been a much lower priority compared with international expansion and crypto for example.
That may be about to change. The aspiring ‘super app’ is eyeing the highly competitive mortgage market, according to its CEO and co-founder Nik Storonsky.
While the fintech company, which also last week revealed its latest feature - a chat function for its c.20 million users - has no concrete plans to launch a mortgage product Storonsky told the Irish Independent newspaper that mortgages are in the works
“We will definitely do mortgages for consumers,” he says. “Because when I look at all the mortgage processes, it can take one to two months. At best, it’s seven days. It’s all quite ‘legacy’,” Storonsky said.
A number of fintechs such as Molo, Mojo and Habito have already focused on the mortgage market as well as others such as Moneybox which have branched out from the core products into the space.
However, the UK mortgage market is still often reliant on human brokers, paper processes and even in-person signing of documents.
Storonsky says Revolut's mortgage offering would be one of two models.
“The first one is a mortgage financed by us as a bank," he said.
"Or it could be like a mortgage introduction. But ultimately what we want to build is a frictionless experience that is 100pc digital, so that within the app you apply for the mortgage, select the house that you want to buy and then be emailed at the same time. Everything would be instant and automated,” he added.
