Danish home-buyers have become the first in Europe to be able to choose a home and then secure a mortgage for it without the need to leave the comfort of their couches. The digital solutions by Danske Bank which make this possible – www.Sunday.dk and the mobile application Sunday.dk – have become popular in the country even before the start of the product’s official promotional campaign. And citizens of other Scandinavian countries should soon be able to use it too. The digital solution, whose success has captured the attention of UK financial organizations, has been created and developed by a joint Lithuanian and Danish team.
Sunday.dk, which has rapidly gained popularity in Denmark, is the only solution in Europe to cover the entire customer path towards buying a home. The solution is attracting more than 10,000 unique users every month, resulting in over 200 loan guarantees being issued per month.
The international team behind Sunday.dk is made up of members with a variety of skill sets. Its role is to ensure that all the business and IT solutions proposed to Danske customers are carefully considered, verified, and address a real customer need. Both customers and employees of Danske Bank have tested the website and the application, with encouraging results. The solution helps not only to save customers’ time, but also to make the bank’s internal processes more efficient.
Dankse makes decisions regarding further product development based on analysis of the customer experience and consumption patterns, and by combining huge amounts of data on home loans already available at the bank. And according to Ramunė Šabanienė, Manager of Advanced Analytics at Sunday.dk and head of the Lithuanian team, this thorough process has ensured a successful end product.
Loans issued in record time
The main advantage this game changing product brings is a dramatic reduction in the amount of time it takes to confirm a mortgage application. On Sunday.dk, about 60% of home loan applications are confirmed within 48 hours, with a loan guarantee issued to the customer shortly after. Similar solutions available elsewhere in Europe provide preliminary confirmation within half an hour or an hour, but then require at least 2 to 3 weeks before final approval is given.
For Ms Šabanienė, the whole project was driven by an ambition to accelerate and further simplify the process of acquiring a mortgage. “We were encouraged to develop a solution which allows loans for real estate to be issued quickly because of the prevailing opinion that it takes a very long time to conclude such transactions,” explains Ms Šabanienė. “We started with very clear objectives: to reduce the period of time needed to issue a mortgage to our customers, and to provide the greatest possible financial planning transparency. Ten years ago Danske Bank was seen as the slowest when it comes to issuing loans, but today we are the fastest.”
