Santander turns to digital technology to offer mortgages via video link

Santander customers will be able to apply for a mortgage via video link, in the latest example of lenders investing in technology to increase their market share.

The bank has 350 mortgage advisers in 63 of its 1,400 branches across the UK.

The branches where these advisers are based are being equipped with the technology needed for the staff to "expand their reach", the bank told Sky News.

Plans are in the offing to enhance the service further later this year by enabling customers to speak with a mortgage adviser by video link from the comfort of their own home.

Until then, customers wanting to talk directly to an adviser about a mortgage will still have to walk into a branch where one is based, or via the provision of the new video technology.

The move follows a pilot project last year.

A spokesman said there were no current plans to "reduce" the number of mortgage advisers the bank currently employs.

"It is about expanding their reach," he said.

"If in the future it means they (customers) want to sit at home and video call a mortgage adviser then that is their choice.

"That is ultimately the direction we are heading in if people want to do that from home."

Santander's video initiative comes against a backdrop of branch closures across the country's major banks on the grounds that customers are shifting to online banking.

In the last set of financial results provided by Santander UK (LSE: 44RS.L - news) for the first three months of 2017, the bank revealed net mortgage lending fell by £400m after it withdrew some of its most competitive rates at the end of 2016.