Knowledge Bank launches new insights tool for lenders

Knowledge Bank has launched ‘KB INSIGHTS’, a new tool for lenders to benchmark their own criteria’s performance against the whole or a specific area of the market.

This enables lenders to identify gaps in their criteria that might see them excluded from brokers' searches, alongside new lending opportunities and the size of this potential.

The system can be accessed via a user dashboard which shows the lender their average search position measured against the market and how many times they have appeared in brokers' searches, amongst other key measurables.

Lenders are also able to compare their policy wording, spread and gradings as well as the popularity of categories. They can also see the criteria categories that are making up the profile of potential borrowers and the cases that brokers are looking to place.

KB INSIGHTS is available across all seven lending types covered by Knowledge Bank which are residential, buy-to-let, second charges, equity release, self-build, bridging and commercial.

The tool displays the top 20 criteria searches performed by brokers in any of the seven lending types which gives lenders an insight of the current lending landscape and how their criteria stacks up against demand. Reports can then be generated by the system and data exported into the lenders' own systems or into csv files.

Lenders have the option to customise their subscription to only include the areas that they lend on to tailor it specifically to their needs.

Nicola Firth, CEO at Knowledge Bank, said: "Lenders have always been desperate to know how and where their criteria was positioned in brokers' searches and now they have that power. Typically they only knew about the cases that made it through to an application and had no idea how many potential borrowers were excluded by their criteria decisions. Now, we're giving them the ability to find criteria niches and help more brokers place more cases.

“Comparison tools are built into the system and lenders can use KB INSIGHTS to really drill down into the data and fine tune their policy proposition and give greater clarity to brokers. Feedback from lenders has been amazing and lenders tell us they have used KB INSIGHTS to be able to identify and satisfy criteria niches that have previously gone under the radar.”