Trussle poll: 70 per cent of borrowers want mortgage lenders to go digital

Two in five people find getting a mortgage stressful. An average customer has to deal with 219 sheets of paper.

Buying a home can be so stressful that it may even harm your mental health. Participating in the ongoing Mental Health Awareness Week, Trussle, an online mortgage broker, surveyed 2,000 UK borrowers. According to the poll, 41 per cent have suffered stress caused by a mortgage.

To alleviate the stress, borrowers would like to have more digital services available to them: 73 per cent think that lenders should be obligated by law to publish their outstanding balances online while 70 per cent want a downloadable mortgage statement, which is generally posted by lenders only once a year.

Ishaan Malhi, the CEO and founder of Trussle, said in a press release that there is too much complexity involved in getting a mortgage. Transparency, on the other hand, is lacking.

“Millions of people lose out not only financially, but emotionally as a result. Your mental health is no less important than your financial or physical health, so I’d like to see modern brands working hard to reduce the friction and stress of their products and services”, Malhi said.

Trussle tested how much paperwork getting a mortgage involves. It tried out the six big lenders and one local one. Although a growing number of financial services are done digitally, a mortgage customer still has to deal with 219 pages of paper, on average.

Trussle is in the business of simplifying the mortgage process and making comparison easier. The London-based startup just secured a £13.6m investment led by Goldman Sachs and Propel Venture Partners.