Nottingham Building Society has launched a new platform for mortgage brokers, powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

The 176-year-old mutual has introduced the IDI (Inviting Difference In) Broker Portal, which enables the society to process and make full decisions on residential mortgage applications significantly faster than the market average of ten to fourteen days. According to recent industry data, the typical timeframe for mortgage approval in the UK ranges from two to six weeks, with most lenders taking at least ten days to issue a decision. The new platform, however, delivers decisions in minutes, representing a substantial improvement for brokers and their clients.

Developed in partnership with fintech MQube, the platform automates the entire underwriting process using AI-driven technology. It provides a more streamlined and efficient experience for both brokers and customers. The IDI Broker Portal was trialled with mortgage provider London & Country (L&C) at the end of 2024 and throughout the first half of 2025, before being rolled out to the wider market.

The platform is designed to remove friction from the mortgage journey, giving brokers faster decisions, greater certainty, and more time to focus on their clients. It can assess around 20,000 data points in real time through its AI and machine learning capabilities, automatically validating documents and affordability, and only requesting additional information when necessary. This results in fewer bottlenecks, fewer delays, and decisions delivered in minutes rather than weeks.

Nottingham Building Society has stated that the platform is fully configurable to lending criteria and risk appetite, allowing it to respond more quickly to market needs, scale up without increasing cost-to-serve, and provide more personalised mortgage options for a wider range of customers. The platform currently deals with residential mortgages only, but the society has confirmed plans to expand the range to include buy-to-let and foreign national applications as part of an ongoing phased integration.

Sue Hayes, chief executive at Nottingham Building Society, commented: “The IDI (Inviting Difference In) Broker Portal will also enable us to move into new markets, use different data sources, and offer mortgages to people who would otherwise find it very difficult to get one. By modernising our banking operations and lending decision-making process, alongside our customer and broker-facing interfaces, we aim to stand out from the crowd as more people are categorised as non-standard borrowers in the UK.”.

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