Empowering brokers and members: Principality Building Society’s journey with Finova

Principality Building Society, the sixth-largest building society in the UK, operates 53 branches and 14 agencies across England and Wales. 

With 90% of its mortgage business introduced through brokers, Principality is a key player in the mortgage market, boasting a £10.5 billion mortgage book, as reported in its 2024 annual results. 

To support its ambitious growth, enhance operational efficiency, and deliver exceptional service to members and brokers, Principality partnered with Finova to implement its loan origination platform, MSO. This collaboration aimed to modernise the Society’s mortgage origination processes and make more possible for customers.

Before implementing Finova’s MSO platform, Principality relied on a stable but complex IT infrastructure with several manual processes. These systems struggled to deliver a seamless end-to-end experience and lacked the scalability required to meet the Society's long-term growth objectives. 

Principality needed a solution that would:

• Simplify and automate broker interactions
• Enable faster mortgage processing
• Support innovative new products
• Enhance exceptional customer service and growth ambitions
• Make more possible for both members and brokers

After evaluating various platforms, Principality selected MSO from Finova due to its robust capabilities and comprehensive support for brokers, direct customers, and internal teams. To suit their specific needs and ensure minimal disruption, Principality chose to implement MSO in phases: 

• Phase 1: Intermediary-generated new business
• Phase 2: Direct business managed by in-house mortgage advisers
• Phase 3: Product transfers and mid-term changes, including digital channels

This approach allowed Principality to transition smoothly, providing teams with opportunities to adapt at each stage. 

MSO has had a transformative impact on Principality's operations, driving significant improvements:

• Efficiency gains: Automating processes like broker registration and product loading drastically reduced turnaround times. For example, loading a product range that previously took 45 hours now takes just 5 hours—a 40-hour improvement.
• Enhanced broker support: Brokers can now self-register instantly, manage cases independently, and track applications through an intuitive pipeline tracker, significantly improving satisfaction and autonomy.
• Faster decision-making: The Decision in Principle engine provides quicker, more accurate outcomes for members and brokers, reducing errors and delays.
• Innovative product launches: MSO has facilitated the rollout of new offerings, including shared ownership and joint borrower sole proprietor mortgages, helping more people onto the property ladder.

These enhancements contributed to record-breaking growth in 2024, with £1.2 billion in retail lending growth.

The Society's enhanced broker experience, loyalty to customers, and commitment to innovation have also earned them industry-wide recognition, being named Best Building Society Lender in Smart Money People’s H2 2024 benchmark survey