Saffron Building Society has chosen FintechOS to modernise how it originates mortgages, starting with residential lending and building toward a full end-to-end process.
The Essex mutual, founded in 1849 and now serving more than 118,000 members with assets above £1.5 billion, wants the new system to sit above its existing Finova servicing technology rather than replace it.
The first phase covers broker onboarding, decisions in principle, applications, underwriting, offers and completions.
The society sells mortgages exclusively through intermediaries and aims to grow lending toward £2 billion within five years.
That ambition collides with a market in which more than 89 percent of UK home loans already go through brokers, a share expected to pass 90 percent. Intermediaries want fast, reliable answers.
Legacy processes still leave large parts of the journey manual, which creates uncertainty and delays. Saffron’s leadership says the new platform is intended to close that gap without discarding the judgement that specialist cases require.
FintechOS will supply automated decisioning, AI-supported underwriting, a central rules engine for criteria, affordability and policy, and a product factory designed to cut launch times from months to days or weeks.
Brokers should see a digital path from registration to offer, including real-time decisions in principle and clearer case tracking.
Standard files may pass through with less human handling, while more complex files—self-employed applicants, irregular income, landlords—can still receive tailored review. Staff will work with an AI assistant called DAX, with plans to extend similar access to brokers so they can query products and case specifics.
Chief transformation officer Qasir Aslam has framed the residential project as a “first drop” of value.
The society plans to prove results quickly, then add products and refine the journey once the system is live.
The approach is incremental: identify broken or slow processes, apply tools where they help, and keep people at the centre of decisions.
Aslam has told colleagues that automation is meant to remove repetitive work so staff can spend more time with brokers and on product improvement.
CEO Colin Field described the deal as part of a wider transformation that should deliver faster responses, greater decision certainty and room to grow specialist lending while preserving personal service.
FintechOS founder Teo Blidarus said building societies often have strong lending fundamentals but have been underserved by enterprise technology.
Saffron, he argued, is investing ahead of growth rather than waiting for a perfect moment.
The partnership is the company’s second UK mutual deal this year after Vernon Building Society.
Together they point to a sector that holds a large share of outstanding UK mortgages and is now adopting AI-enabled origination that runs above existing cores.
If the rollout works as intended, Saffron should ask better questions at application capture, reduce later surprises, and give brokers more confidence that a decision in principle will hold.
Members should experience a shorter path to offer and fewer document chases. The society will still differentiate on specialist underwriting; the bet is that software can handle the routine so people can handle the rest.