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LiveTalk enables advisers to hold online conversation with one of the RBS Intermediary Partners' sales team about products, lending policy, lending criteria and transitional arrangements.

At the end of each LiveTalk session advisers will have the option of being sent a copy of the transcript of their online conversation.

The system has been piloted with a sample of intermediaries in the last few weeks with advisers supporting the chance to get an answer to a question quickly without having to pick up the phone and join a queue to speak to a business development manager.

Chris Pearson, director of intermediary mortgages for RBS Intermediary Partners, said: "With the management of service levels still being a critical issue in today's market, the introduction of LiveTalk should be a real help to intermediaries.

"The beauty of this sort of service is it frees advisers from having to be on the telephone, allowing them to ask questions at their own pace, while doing other tasks or being on the telephone to their clients. It also means we can focus more of our resources on processing applications."

But Mr Pearson said the system had not been designed for advisers to get updates on the progress on applications.

Ken Sives, an IFA and partner of Larne-based intermediary Remax Property Plus, said LiveTalk seemed like a reasonably good idea to him as the amount of time advisers sometimes had to sit on the telephone could be quite ridiculous.

He said: "However surely most of the calls would be about applications so it does seem like they are only doing half a job there."

LiveTalk can be accessed from an icon on the newly-designed rbsip.com home page from 9am to 5.30pm each weekday.

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