Direct mortgage lending in branch has dropped by half (51%) as intermediary sales have flourished, according to research from Iress.

It said that mortgage brokers achieved an average market share of 82% during 2015/2016.

Direct sales of mortgage via lenders’ telephone services has also suffered over the last three years, according to the Iress annual mortgage efficiency benchmark survey 2016, falling by 35%.

Investment in tech

More lenders have been investing in their digital offering over the last 12 months, the report revealed, as direct and in-branch video links to mortgage advisers increased over the last 12 months, offering more options to consumers and enabling more direct sales per adviser to be processed.

And over 44% of lenders are planning to offer more mobile services next year, while mobile quote and decision in principle at lenders has increased by 185% over the last year, case tracking by 72.2% and full mortgage application by 116.6%.

Peter Williams, executive director of the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders’ Association, said: “There is still a way to go to digitise the mortgage market – most mobile services are offered by less than half of lenders – but it is encouraging that many of the lenders surveyed are planning to roll out further digital innovations. It is almost inevitable that consumer and broker demands will run ahead of what lenders are doing but we can now see real progress coming through and the momentum is building up.”