The conversation in mortgage advice is often framed around technology. But that is not really where the change is coming from. The shift is happening on the client side.
What people expect from a service experience has moved on, and it is moving quickly. Not because of anything specific to mortgages, but because of everything else they interact with day to day. In banking, healthcare, retail and travel, the experience has become more connected, more immediate and more transparent, customers expect to have everything at their fingertips. You can open an account, share information, track progress and communicate in real time, all from a single interface. That is the standard clients are now bringing with them into mortgage advice.
Importantly, this shift is not changing what clients want from advisers. If anything, it reinforces it. Clients still value expertise, reassurance and guidance when making complex financial decisions. Santander’s Broker Perception Barometer shows that 65% of borrowers say they could not have gone through the process without a broker, and 85% would use one again.
So, the role of the adviser remains strong. What is changing is everything around it.
Clients increasingly expect the journey that supports that advice to feel as straightforward and connected as the best digital experiences they already use. Santander’s 2026 research highlights how behaviour is already shifting, with two-fifths of first-time buyers messaging their broker weekly on platforms like WhatsApp.
That expectation for immediacy and continuity is not just visible in borrower behaviour. It is also showing up inside advice firms themselves. Our own analysis of the UK client portal landscape found that mobile usage now dominates client engagement, yet many existing systems still rely heavily on email or desktop-led interaction, with only a minority of clients primarily engaging through traditional channels.
In other words, the expectation is no longer simply that services are digital. It is that they feel immediate, intuitive and always accessible.
The challenge is that this expectation sits alongside a very different reality in many mortgage journeys today.
When you look at what frustrates clients, it is rarely the advice itself. It is everything around it. The broader process still feels fragmented. The Open Property Data Association’s (OPDA’s) research shows that 40.6% of people find communication between stakeholders the hardest part of homebuying, 39.5% say chasing for updates makes things worse, and 62.3% have been asked to provide the same information or documents multiple times.
These are not small irritations. They shape how the entire experience is perceived. Even where parts of the journey have been digitised, repetition and lack of visibility can make it feel manual. That is reinforced by the gap between expectation and reality on timing. Only 6.7% of people expected exchange to take three to six months, yet nearly half experienced that timeframe in practice.
Part of the reason for this sits beneath the surface. Many firms are still working across disconnected systems, where integration gaps force data to be re-entered and workflows to be manually stitched together. In our analysis of existing client portals, this lack of integration is one of the most common and persistent issues, limiting how seamless the experience can ever feel to the client.
The issue is not simply that the process takes time. It is that it often lacks clarity and continuity. Clients do not always know what is happening, what is needed next, or why they are being asked to repeat information.
At the same time, their expectations are being shaped elsewhere, often without them realising it. In banking, digital onboarding is now standard. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) data shows that 76% of day-to-day accounts are opened online or via mobile, and 94% of mobile banking users are satisfied with their experience.
Open Banking has built on that, with 16.5 million user connections and 351 million payments processed in 2025, normalising the idea that data can be shared securely and reused with consent.
In healthcare, the same pattern is visible. The NHS App recorded 77.1 million login sessions in March 2026 alone, with millions of people using it to manage appointments, prescriptions and records.
Taken together, these experiences are resetting expectations. People are getting used to sharing information once, tracking progress in real time and managing complex interactions through a single, connected experience. When the mortgage journey does not reflect that, it stands out.
This does not mean the industry needs to move towards fully automated advice. The evidence suggests clients are not asking for that. It does mean that brokered advice needs to feel more connected, more transparent and easier to engage with.
Encouragingly, the direction of travel is already clear. Government consultation on home buying and selling reform describes the current process as long, complicated and frustrating, and points towards better data sharing, clearer progress tracking and more joined-up digital experiences.
At the same time, the building blocks for digital trust are becoming more established. HMRC guidance confirms that secure electronic identity verification can be treated as a reliable and independent source in the right circumstances.
Alongside this, the role of the client portal itself is evolving. It is no longer just a supporting feature or a document store. It is becoming the digital front door to advice, shaping how clients engage from the first interaction through to completion and beyond.
So the foundations are already there. The question is how they are brought together.
This is where the opportunity sits for advice firms. It is not about replacing advisers or fundamentally rethinking their role. That part of the model is working. It is about improving the experience around them so that it matches the expectations clients now bring into the process.
In practice, that means rethinking how the journey is designed. Information should be captured once and reused wherever possible. Clients should be able to see progress clearly, without needing to chase. Communication should reflect how people already interact, with secure and familiar message-led exchanges sitting at the centre of the experience. Data capture should feel progressive and relevant, rather than front-loaded and repetitive. And compliance, identity and documentation should be built into the flow of the journey, not introduced as separate interruptions.
None of this diminishes the role of the adviser. If anything, it strengthens it. When the friction is removed, advisers have more time to focus on what matters most. Interpreting information, guiding decisions, providing reassurance and helping clients move forward with confidence.
From a Twenty7tec perspective, this is where the opportunity becomes clear. The sector does not need a “digital broker”. It needs a better digital client journey for brokered advice. One that keeps the adviser at the centre but connects everything around them in a way that feels consistent, responsive and easy to navigate.
The direction of travel is towards a more connected experience layer, where clients, advisers, data and compliance come together into a single, coherent journey.
Because ultimately, the future of mortgage advice is not about choosing between human expertise and digital experience.
It is about bringing the two together in a way that works better for everyone.
