Mortgage Brain has launched a tool which can be installed into Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa to help people search for a mortgage and find their local adviser.
The function - which Amazon refers to as "skills" - will use mortgage data to allow consumers to ask Alexa to find them a mortgage to fit their needs.
Alexa will then ask a few questions and search through more than 10,000 mortgages before providing details of products which match their requirements.
By giving Alexa a postcode – or using the one registered for the device – the system will also search through thousands of mortgage advisers and provide the name and phone number of the nearest one, and send a list of up to 10 local advisers to the Alexa app.
Mark Lofthouse, chief executive of Mortgage Brain, said: "We’re incredibly excited and very proud to announce the launch of the first ever UK mortgage skill on Amazon’s Echo devices.
"It’s a fantastic achievement to be the first UK mortgage technology company to develop a skill to support consumers and drive business to mortgage advisers.
"This launch is part of a much bigger picture and strategy. It is the start of a consumer’s digital mortgage experience and, after this initial introduction, they can complete a fact find online and securely exchange documents and messages through The Key, our CRM system’s Client Portal.
"And that’s not the end of the story, as the advice process, product selection and application submission through to completion can be just as slick and efficient using our sourcing systems and application submission platform."
This is the latest use of Amazon's virtual assistant by a financial services company.
Smart Pension members are now able to use Alexa to ask questions about their savings, and make changes to their pension contributions.
They can also make changes to their pension contributions via the device – which immediately notifies the account holder and employer about this change via email.
Kevin Dunn, senior partner at Leicester-based Furnley House, said: "There is a big part of the process which is quite logic driven, so finding the least expensive mortgage deal, once you put in the criteria, isn't a massively difficult part of the job.
"If it works well and it is a clean case I cannot see any reason why it wouldn't work but you get very few clean cases.
"There will always be a place for mortgage brokers, to help those who are self-employed or who have impaired credit, for example."
damian.fantato@ft.com
