Online mortgage first for Scots pair

Sunday Herald, The, Jul 24, 2005 by Julia Fields

A SCOTTISH software developer has made a major commercial breakthrough in financial services with contracts to transform two online mortgage sites.

Iteration: : two has redesigned the offset mortgage calculators for Intelligent Finance and St James's Place Bank.

The wins represent a significant move forward for the management team at the Edinburgh firm, who have spent the past 18 months telling the business community about the benefits of Rich Internet Applications (RIA). It is described as a step change in web technology that is expected to revolutionise online selling.

Most online product applications have numerous page forms, causing a frustrating customer experience characterised by slow page reloads, lost user information when the browser times out or the inability to disconnect halfway through the form process and then reconnect.

RIAs solve many of these problems by marrying interactive browser technologies such as Macromedia Flash or Flex with the Java or .NET computer languages, to deliver complex information on the browser more effectively.

Industry analyst Gartner predicts that, between 2007 and 2010, 60- per cent of new applications online will include RIA technology.

Steven Webster and Alistair McLeod, co-founders of iteration: : two, have developed software that pulls together all the buying or information options on a single screen and reduces the purchasing process to mere seconds.

The company is currently in talks with six other financial institutions in the UK and Ireland and long-running negotiations with a British airline.

Turnover is projected to hit pounds-750,000 for the year ended November 2005, compared with pounds-150,000 last year.

Since the team introduced its system to the Intelligent Finance offset mortgage calculator, which went live three months ago, the bank has seen online mortgage applications rise by 15-per cent. It has also seen a 20-per cent increase in site visitors.

The software is also used by the bank's call centre staff when taking telephone enquiries and an offline version has been developed for brokers on the move.

Webster refused to reveal the value of the Intelligence Finance and St James's Place deals, but said the company was bidding for future projects worth between pounds-250,000 to pounds-500,000 each.

Webster said: "We've done the groundwork successfully. We took a punt two years ago on this technology. The next year is about capitalising on that."

The two Scots have been at the forefront of RIA technology writing a number of books for San Francisco-based Macromedia, the latest on Macromedia Flex technology, and touring the international speaking circuit to spread the word.

Iteration: two is an alliance partner with Macromedia for Europe, the Middle East and Asia.