A FinTech firm which is shaking up the mortgage sector has enjoyed a 405 per cent growth in applications in 15 months – and its CEO believes there鈥檚 more to come.
Macclesfield-based聽 Mojo Mortgages received 拢7m in funding earlier this year and CEO and co-founder Richard Hayes predicts it could become a half a billion pound business in time.
The entrepreneur told 老九品茶Cloud that Mojo Mortgages is about to launch a new product called Mortgage Score which will take the business to the next level.
Mojo, which is short for 鈥榤ortgage journey鈥�, uses an algorithm to match the specific needs of customers against more than 20,000 mortgage products to find the right one.
The current iteration of Mojo was only launched in April 2018 by Hayes and Nick Sherratt but has already helped more聽than 50,000 people and saved customers 拢4m in broker fees.
Hayes said: 鈥淢ojo Mortgages is a FinTech and we make mortgages easier. Every month has to be a record month. We鈥檙e exceptionally focused as a business on growth.
“We鈥檙e on a trajectory for a Series B investment and when you鈥檙e going through a scaling process one of the important things is that continued growth.鈥�
Although not disclosing the precise numbers he said the number of mortgage applications coming through the site in July 2019 were up 405 per cent from last May.
For the last six months the company has been working on a new product called Mortgage Score that is just about to launch.
鈥淲hat we found is that a lot of people visiting the website are not ready to buy a mortgage,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey wanted to understand what they needed to do to get mortgage ready.
“Mortgage Score allows someone to sign up to Mojo but instead of聽 immediately going for a mortgage application they get their mortgage score.
“Their mortgage score is a combination of their spending habits; how much they earn; their credit score from Experian; how much they鈥檝e got saved up; and some personal insights into how much they鈥檙e thinking about buying a house for. We use all that data to give them an insight into when they might be mortgage ready.鈥�
Mojo Mortgages employs 60 people and Hayes said the sector needed to embrace technology fully.
鈥淭he UK market is the largest in Europe聽 although it鈥檚 quite unique聽 in that intermediaries – or brokers – play an integral part in the life cycle,鈥� he said.
鈥淏rokers are involved in 80 per cent of all mortgage sales聽 in the UK but the market is really fragmented. Currently around 42 per cent don鈥檛 even have a website! We see it as an opportunity for disruption.”
Mojo Mortgages was a rebrand from the previous title of Life鈥檚 Great in 2018 and specialised only in mortgages.
鈥淥ver the next four years we鈥檙e going for a five per cent market share in the UK mortgage intermediary space,鈥� said Hayes. 鈥淲e鈥檝e also started investigating additional territories and understanding how we can scale this into other territories.鈥�