Stuart Wilson, managing director at Equity Release Advisory Service, said: “Woolwich’s online system is farcical. Most lenders allow you to fill in an application offline or to save each page as you go, but this does neither. In addition, after logging on with your broker ID, Woolwich asks you to log-on again three pages later. The system is designed for consumers – it has just added a few pages for brokers.”
Wilson added that he could not retrieve one of his applications and that when he contacted customer services, they were also unable to retrieve the data by either the client’s name or postcode. He said: “Woolwich does not even want to retrieve data on behalf of intermediaries. It seems like it cannot be bothered with us.”
Mike Fitzgerald, sales director at Brentchase Financial Services, agreed there were problems using Woolwich’s online service. He said: “The online application form would not migrate into a full application form. However, we have found its service is improving and the lender has told me it will be changing its intermediary website in January.”
David Finlay, intermediary business director at the Woolwich, said: “The reason intermediaries are asked to log on a second time on page three of the form is so that the individual application can be given a unique password that is case specific and will allow intermediaries to retrieve the application. We will be launching a new trading platform next year for intermediaries that will replace our existing one.”
