Leading providers of mortgage-sourcing software have denied they are scrapping desktop versions of their products and moving to wholly cloud-based systems.
Brokers have recently expressed concerns that Iress and Mortgage Brain planned to discontinue the desktop-based versions of their systems, which they feared could leading to accessibility and security issues.
But both providers have denied claims they are moving to the cloud and stated brokers will be able to access both online and offline services.
Matthew Fleming-Duffy, director at Bournemouth-based Cherry Finance, told FTAdvsier an Iress spokesperson had informed him the service was moving to an online-only cloud version, and a desktop version would no longer be available.
Mr Fleming-Duffy said: “A cloud-based solution is quite simply not practical if the client does not want me to connect to their Wi-Fi, or if the assumption is that I should rely on my own connectivity via mobile, what if I cannot get a good - or any - signal?
“I’m sure that my IT friends would say that this could also pose a serious data security issue, if I am connecting up to someone else’s Wi-Fi.”
Mr Fleming-Duffy said such a change could serve to benefit larger brokers but work to the detriment of smaller ones, who often tend to visit clients when carrying out mortgage evaluations.
He said: “If you are a larger broker, they are all desk-based and in the grand scheme of volume of business [Iress] is not worried about serving the overall marketplace.
“[Iress mortgage support] Trigold is happy to be more supportive of these big brokers and force changes on smaller brokers that are not very practical.”
But an Iress spokesperson said: “There are no plans whatsoever to discontinue the offline version of Trigold, known as Prospector.
“Any adviser that has a license for Trigold Prospector (offline) can also use our online mortgage sourcing, known as XPlan Mortgage, under the same license agreement, at no additional cost.”
Meanwhile Nick Green, a broker at Coventry-based Alternative Estates and Financial Services, said he had not moved over to the online version of MBL’s Mortgage Brain Anywhere due to similar concerns over connectivity.
He said: “I haven’t moved over to it [because] as I understand it you can’t have both - desktop and cloud - which doesn’t make sense because if it goes down, you can’t use it - you have down time sorting it out.”
A spokesperson for MBL said both versions would continue to be available under separate license agreements, but added they have exactly the same capability and it made sense to opt for either one or the other.
He added: “Mortgage Brain are the only mortgage sourcing provider who are committed to providing both online (MortgageBrain Anywhere) and offline (MortgageBrain Classic) mortgage sourcing solutions and the choice of which to use is the adviser’s.”
simon.allin@ft.com
