It has also enabled the launch of new products. The society launched its student mortgage in 2005, a product whereby students at either of the city's universities can gain a mortgage on a property in Bath backed by the equity in their parents' home.With the new system, it has expanded this offering to first-time buyers allowing the society to lend higher loans-to-value to people with a collateral charge on the parental home. 'I'm really surprised that nobody else has followed us down that path. It seems an obvious thing to do. If your parents have got equity in their home and they want to help you get on the property ladder it's perfect.' A move to offering self-build mortgages has also been made easier by the move to Tieto.
Aside from enhancing the product range, the new system has also helped improve other areas for the mutual, such as the production of documentation. 'The critical sales documents in which you have to explain the terms of the mortgage to the customer in a very specific and precise kind of way has been made a lot easier by the action we've taken.'
When the selection was made, BBS was expecting to gain the most benefit out of the mortgages side of the project. But this has not been the case. 'I think we've seen a lot more benefits out of the savings side in terms of management information and the ease and speed of batch transactions.We hadn't really anticipated that when we went into the project,' said Jenkins. He maintained that it did also gain benefits out of the mortgages part of the system but would like to see more here in the next few years. 'We've got to a point where I think we can take that further with a little bit more time and development. I have a sense that we haven't yet optimised the benefits we're getting out of it. There's maybe some work to be done there.'
The next stage revolves around the upgrade to the system. Half way through the project, Tieto announced that it was going to do a major re-write of the system. As a result, BBS was planning another implementation to take place in the next year or so. 'We're trying to make sure we don't spend money on the short-term improvements, knowing full well there is going to be a better and more usable system afterwards.' Jenkins believed there comes a point where vendors have to sort out their platform to move on. 'I think all systems get to that point, and I think Tieto are doing the right thing by investing in it.'
