Analysis on Extending Finture's Coverage of the Mortgage-Intermediary's Process.

The Dutch mortgage-market has experienced significant changes during the last decade. Several aspects led to a shift in market share from the banks to intermediary organizations. As a response to this development, Topicus teamed up with a few intermediary organizations and developed an application that offers support for the workflow in the intermediary organization. This system, Finture, is developed based on the FORCE framework. The main functional goal of Finture is to offer complete support for the intermediary’s primary process, as well as all interactions with its chain-partners. In realizing this goal, Topicus questioned how Finture’s role in the intermediary’s primary process could be improved and extended. This question is the main research question in this research. In answering this question, the BiZZdesign approach is adopted. This approach originates in the Dutch financial sector and is aimed at analysis and design of (support for) information intensive processes. The main research question is answered in five research steps. The first two steps consist of an analysis of the overall mortgage chain and Finture’s current role in it. By mapping these two situations, the unsupported processes are identified. Each of these processes is input for the two final steps, consisting of an in-depth analysis of the process and the identification, evaluation and recommendation of implementation alternatives. The mortgage intermediary mediates between mortgage providers and customers interested in acquiring a mortgage. Finture facilitates the workflow in this process, it guides customerpropositions through the process, steering the intermediary employees. All interactions between the intermediary and its chain-partners are supported by Finture. Regarding activities in the primary process, the generation of the advice report is not supported. For this
activity, intermediaries currently use additional third party software. Besides offering support for the advice generation, support for the Offer Acceptance Check introduces an additional added value. The evaluation of implementation alternatives for mortgage advice functionality showed that there is no directly available solution. When Topicus decides that this functionality is desired, it is assumed that it should be developed in-house. Due to the complexity in calculations and diversity and dynamism of the information involved, it is recommended to team up with an advice-software solution provider to develop a serviceoriented solution together. For the Offer Acceptance Check it is recommended to use third party check components, installed on the Finture ASP platform. In using these external components, Topicus is not responsible for maintenance of the components in order to conform to the changing check norms of all providers and products. In the recommended situation, Finture offers an extended support for the mortgage intermediary’s primary process, within the boundaries of the Topicus corporate strategy.