Seventy per cent of traditional mortgage underwriting tasks can now be performed by artificial intelligence (AI), analysis by MQube has revealed.

The mortgage financial technology company said the development is set to "materially change" the role of human underwriters and processors to auditors.

MQube's study examined nearly 1,000 complex mortgage cases that had already been underwritten by human underwriters. Using the same information provided, MQube’s AI technology re-underwrote the cases and reached the same outcome 70% of the time.

The rollout of the firm’s AI-powered underwriting service forms the second phase of its digital transformation journey.

The first phase focused on delivering the One Day Mortgage, which MQube described as a key milestone that has driven its continued growth and success.

Chief executive officer at MQube, Stuart Cheetham, stated: "Mortgage underwriting, long defined by manual review of income, credit history, affordability, property details and risk factors is moving from human execution to machine intelligence.

"As AI assumes the bulk of case processing, the role of the underwriter will fundamentally evolve from processing applications line by line to overseeing, validating and governing AI-driven decisions.

"What our analysis shows is that much of the work done by a human underwriter can now be done faster and accurately by AI. This is about improving speed and consistency and importantly not removing human judgement. With average underwriting times typically around four hours per case, reducing that to approximately 25 minutes using AI-driven underwriting represents a meaningful shift for lenders, brokers and borrowers alike. As this becomes standard practice, the impact on the industry could be gamechanging."

---