Executive talks the operational blind spots, integration challenges and future priorities for brokers
Cloë Atkinson (pictured top) has spent much of her career bridging two worlds, the operational demands of mortgage distribution and the fast-moving possibilities of technology. Now COO and CTO at Mortgage Brain, she oversees the company’s technology and operations strategy after years in banking, risk, and mortgage transformation projects.
Before joining the tech side, Atkinson worked for over a decade in Santander’s mortgage team, later founding a start-up focused on connectivity between lenders and brokers. That mix of operational grounding and technology innovation means she approaches the “future of mortgage tech” with a clear eye on what actually works in day-to-day broker operations.
“A broker that isn’t considering security and cybersecurity when buying new technology is missing a trick,” she said. “Technology can give you support you’ll never get with pen and paper or an Excel spreadsheet.”
What good mortgage tech looks like today
For Atkinson, the value of a system lies in what it removes from a broker’s day. That means cutting repetitive admin, eliminating rekeying, and making data flow between providers without friction.
“Think about what takes you time when you’re with a client,” she said. “A client portal where they can upload documents, fill in details, even be pre-assessed before you meet, that’s where technology starts paying for itself.”
Her vision of good mortgage tech also includes robust third-party integrations: property checks, EPC ratings, insurance and protection providers, all linked by a shared “data dictionary” so information is entered once and reused everywhere.
For brokers new to the industry, she argues, this kind of automation can replicate the experience of a veteran adviser, running lender criteria checks, calculating affordability, and spotting potential roadblocks like flat roofs, knotweed or flats above takeaways. “It’s about surfacing that knowledge quickly so you can make decisions with confidence,” she adds.
Integration remains a work in progress
The industry has talked for years about creating a connected lender–broker ecosystem. But Atkinson is blunt: “My simple answer is no – lenders still have very specific data requirements and they don’t want to change them.”
Instead, technology firms play the role of interpreter, mapping and translating broker-submitted data into lender-specific formats. The benefit for advisers is that the front-end experience can be standardised, regardless of lender quirks.
“What we’ve tried to do is make the journey look the same for a broker, whether they’re going to a high street bank or a small building society,” she said. “That consistency builds familiarity, which means faster, more confident case submissions.”
Still, she sees this as an early stage. Most current integrations stop at application submission. The real leap, she believes, will come when brokers can receive live case updates from multiple lenders in one place. “That’s when it starts to get really valuable.”
Where automation should stop
Atkinson has already seen what full automation looks like, and why it hasn’t taken over. “I built technology years ago that meant you could get a mortgage completely online, never speak to a broker, and it would work fine. People didn’t use it,” she said.
The reason, she believes, is that a mortgage is a fundamentally different decision from buying insurance or booking a flight. “It’s a much bigger deal in people’s minds. They want the conversation; they want that reassurance. The tools will keep making journeys easier, but I don’t think we’ll ever replace the value of that interaction.”
The next challenges for operations teams
Security tops her list. “Other financial sectors are ahead of us in cybersecurity, and we need to catch up,” she said. That means evaluating every new tool not just for features, but for how it protects client and business data.
The pace of technology change is another operational challenge. “By the time you’ve put a piece of tech into production, it can already be out of date,” she said. “We have to choose carefully where we invest – or be ready to spread our bets on several smaller projects.”
Finally, she points to economic uncertainty as a background risk that technology can’t fix. “We’re an industry based on swap rates, and global events can move those quickly. That will filter through to pricing, housing activity and broker workloads. We just have to be ready for the next shift.”
Tech should enable the conversation – not replace it
For Atkinson, the end goal of all this investment, integration and automation is simple: to give brokers more time for the conversations that matter.
“The conversation is still what gives the consumer confidence,” she said. “Technology should free brokers to focus on that – not try to replace it.”
