Strategic Intelligence: Digital Mortgages

This report explores the burgeoning digital mortgage space, including coverage of the key trends that will shape the segment going forward. It explores where home buying sits in relation to other key financial goals, channel preferences for research and purchase, and the features driving product selection. The report examines how banks can best co-exist with all the new players within the digital mortgage ecosystem, before concluding with firm-level summaries on who we think is best placed to succeed in this segment and why, based on the preceding analysis.

Despite being the anchor of the customer relationship and a key revenue-generating product, mortgages remain relatively untouched by digitization and innovation, both in the experience (the research and purchase process), and in the product (the basic 25-30-year term used in many geographies remains unchanged for centuries now). In other areas of customers’ lives, products and services have evolved to fit modern lifestyles. People stream music and entertainment content. They make payments, access advice, and apply for products, all from their mobile devices. Yet mortgages remain conspicuously unevolved in many markets-but that is now changing.

Report Scope

• In 2025, saving to buy a house was ranked as the most important goal by 37% of consumers globally. It likely would have been cited as first by a higher proportion of respondents were it not for house prices being so high, wages so low (in comparison), and the act of buying a house simply out of reach for many consumers.
• When the analyst asked consumers about their preferred channel for mortgage applications, 53% selected a bank branch. Consumers clearly value face-to-face contact when making such a major decision.
• When the analyst asked consumers which factors were most important when deciding on a mortgage product, a “provider offering the lowest possible rate” emerged as the number one driver of product selection in all markets-unsurprising given that a mortgage is such a large, expensive product.

Reasons to Buy

• Understand the burgeoning digital mortgage space.
• Explore the barriers to uptake deterring consumers from using digital platforms to take out mortgages.
• Identify the key players within this space.