Legal & General’s FinTech business has invested in £3m in Smartr365, a SaaS company which supplies systems to the UK mortgage intermediary market.
The startup was founded in 2016 with the aim of helping mortgage brokers deliver a digital and more efficient service for clients.
Legal and General’s MD of FinTech, Nick Frankland, who will join the board of Smartr365 as a non-executive director, commented on the investment:
“We are huge supporters of the adviser market at Legal & General and recognise that they are invaluable in helping people through the home financing process. But we also recognise that they have to work very hard managing the administration when they could be using technology to free up their time and help more customers.
“Within the FinTech business in Legal & General we look for opportunities to help markets on the journey from analogue to digital, especially where the customer experience can be improved as well. Smartr365 offers us the perfect platform to combine both of these aims and help the entire mortgage industry. I am personally looking forward to working closely with the management team at Smartr365 and sharing ideas to continue innovating the platform that Smartr365 is offering to intermediaries, right across the UK.”
Conor Murphy, director at Smartr365, said: “The objective of Smartr365 is to support the whole mortgage advice market by leveraging the benefits of technology to drive value and efficiency, thereby allowing intermediaries to process more volume, whilst delivering a smoother process for customers. The Smartr365 platform takes the administrative heavy lifting away from advisers, typically condensing 10 hours of work down to just one hour, and allowing the focus to be the provision of sound advice. Legal & General’s decision to invest is a huge endorsement and major milestone for Smartr365. Their experience and expertise in helping to scale technology-based businesses will be instrumental in allowing us to drive the business forwards.
The funding will enable the startup to continue develop its proposition.
“Product development is our number one focus and having the financial and strategic backing of Legal & General as a partner is vital to help us achieve our goals in this area. Our aim is to deliver the best solution to advisers and consumers and to continuously evolve so we remain at the forefront of developments in this exciting sector, whilst empowering as many advisers as possible across the whole industry,” Murphy concluded.