Egg offers first virtual mortgage

The Prudential's online banking arm, Egg, looks set to be the first mortgage lender to process entire applications online.

Egg's Web site, http://www.egg.com , currently only offers its customers repayment calculations. But it has commissioned decision-making software from Marlborough Stirling to process mortgage applications from start to finish.

Marlborough Stirling's director of distribution systems, Graham Coxell, said the product will be ready to ship any day now. "I can confirm that Egg will be using our Omiga mortgage point-of-sale system," he told Silicon.com. "This will be implemented and go live very shortly in their call centre, with the Internet solution going live in the not too distant future."

Coxell said the software will enable Egg to give customers online notice of mortgage application decisions. It will rely on feeds from credit checkers, Equifax and Experian, to verify the financial status of customers.

Egg confirmed that Marlborough Stirling is developing its software, but declined to comment further until October.

The news puts Egg ahead of the game. Research conducted this month by MoneyFacts shows that nine out of 140 mortgage lenders offer email-based estimates of how much money they are prepared to lend a customer, known as mortgages in principle. But few plan to follow in Egg's footsteps.

Philip Dearing, CEO of independent mortgage lender Market Harborough, explained: "Everyone's circumstances are different. Our customers are completely different to the mass market profile and we would prefer to treat them as individuals."