CRM for UK mortgage brokers: cases, documents, expiries

A CRM for a UK mortgage broker has to follow a case from the first call to completion, then bring the client back before the product ends. A joint purchase brings two applicants, a property, a lender, a solicitor and often a protection policy, where a generic CRM sees five unrelated contacts. The advice has its own rules too. Under the FCA's mortgage rules, a firm that advises "must take reasonable steps to ensure that the regulated mortgage contract is, or after the variation will be, suitable for that customer" (MCOB 4.7A.2R). In its letter to mortgage intermediaries of 30 January 2025, the FCA wrote that "Our key focus is on embedding the Consumer Duty." The same letter notes that "More customers are facing challenging financial circumstances or vulnerability, which can require more in-depth fact-finding".

Between those steps, payslips and bank statements arrive by email, the decision in principle sits in the sourcing system, and the notes of the call get typed up in the evening, from memory. When the fixed rate nears its end, the product expiry date sits in a spreadsheet beside the CRM.

Standards starts from your own objects instead of a generic template: clients, applicants, mortgages, properties, protection policies and introducers, each with the fields your firm uses. The link between two records carries its own details. An applicant joins a mortgage with a role, first or second applicant, and a property carries each owner's share and how they hold it. You filter on those details like any other field, so a buy-to-let held by a couple in unequal shares reads on the record, with no spreadsheet beside it. Each client has their own drive, with folders, drag and drop and search by name, so the passport scan and the mortgage offer sit with the case they belong to. When an adviser creates a case, Standards generates the standard folder tree of a client file, the same for every adviser in the firm. A colleague who covers a holiday then finds the latest bank statement in the same folder as everyone else.

An introducer is a record too. Each case links to the estate agent, accountant or solicitor who sent it, so one filter lists every case an introducer referred.

Standards treats a supporting document as data on the client file, with the properties your firm declares, such as its type and its expiry date. On a client or an applicant, you require specific documents, such as a passport, proof of address, three payslips or the last bank statements, and the record shows which ones you hold. The agents in Standards read the PDFs and scans you receive, check the document and carry its details into the record. On a payslip, the agent reads the employer, the pay date and the net pay, and writes them into the fields you defined. Each value it writes goes into the record's history next to the one before, with the agent named as its author. You check the figures before they go into the lender's application, which stays in your sourcing system or the lender's portal. Standards does not run affordability checks or submit a case to a lender, and it does not replace the fact find your compliance system keeps.

Connect your Gmail inbox, and Standards files each thread on the records whose email addresses match its participants, where you read it as a conversation next to the client's documents. Standards gives each email a category (such as direct, transactional, newsletters or one of your own) and turns each correction you make into a rule for the next ones. Add a category of your own for lenders, and the lender's case updates no longer sit in the same list as the client's questions. For meetings, Standards sends a bot to record your video calls on Zoom, Meet or Teams and returns the transcript and the minutes in the language of the meeting. Each meeting attaches to the records of its participants, so the applicant's record shows the fact-finding call and the follow-up. Your Google Calendar stays in sync, so you can book or move an appointment from the workspace. One limit, in October 2026: on the Standards cloud, the connected inbox and calendar are Google's, and Outlook runs on a dedicated instance or on your own infrastructure.

On one page, Standards lists the upcoming deadlines, renewals and anniversaries of your records, each list read from a date field you put on the record. Put the product expiry date on the mortgage, and the clients whose fixed rate ends in the coming months appear in one list, next to the protection renewals. A routine, an agent task started by a schedule or an event, can run each Monday, find the mortgages whose product ends within six months and assign each case to its adviser, who gets a notification. The adviser opens the record and finds the last offer, the last meeting's minutes and the emails of the original case on it. When the client confirms a product transfer or a remortgage, the adviser updates the case, and the history keeps the old product beside the new one. Standards does not source the new product: your sourcing system does, and the signed documents go back on the record as PDFs.

Standards records each change to a client's record and shows who made it, a colleague or an AI agent, when, and the value before. Under MCOB 4.7A.25R, "A firm must make and retain a record" of the customer information, "including that relating to the customer's needs and circumstances", and of why it concluded the advice was suitable. Those records "must be retained for a minimum of three years from the date on which the advice or explanation was given". MCOB does not require a change history, but the history in Standards shows who wrote each value of that record. In its letter of 30 January 2025, the FCA said it "will review whether sufficient assessment of customer circumstances is being carried out, and whether the advice given is suitable." It will "also review the adequacy of firms' systems and controls, and quality assurance procedures".

When an AI agent fills in a client's income from a payslip, your compliance officer needs to know which values a person entered and which the agent wrote. In Standards, a deletion or an outward send waits for a person's approval by default, with the number of records or recipients it touches. For edits in a conversation, you pick the mode. In Manual mode, the agent asks for your approval before each change to your data. In Auto, the default, it changes your data without asking, and the history keeps each previous value. An agent never does more than the person it acts for, and roles set who reads, creates, edits or deletes, object by object.

Standards does not apply the MCOB three-year minimum for keeping advice records: your retention policy decides when a client file goes.

Standards is not a sourcing system or a compliance CRM. It does not source products, run affordability or a fact find, write suitability letters or offer e-signature, and it sends no bulk email. UK broker tools announce several of these on their own pages, read on 26 October 2026, and the table names which.

Standards suits a directly authorised brokerage that keeps its sourcing and compliance tools and wants each case with its documents, emails, meetings and change history on one record. It does not suit a firm looking for one tool that also sources products and writes the regulated paperwork. Your developers can connect your sourcing system or your network's tools to Standards through its API, or have those tools call a routine's webhook URL to start an agent. For other trades, see the industries Standards serves.

To choose a CRM as a UK mortgage broker, first check what your network provides. A guide for new UK brokers, published in February 2026, says: "The network or employer will provide a system as part of your monthly fee" (guide for new UK brokers). A directly authorised firm, outside a network, chooses its own. Then decide which kind you need. A CRM built for UK mortgages links to your sourcing system and can bring a fact find or suitability letters. A CRM you shape around your own cases sits beside your sourcing system and holds the client file. Standards is the second kind. Last, ask three questions of any CRM.

To set those answers against other tools, see Standards compared with other tools.

A new mortgage client comes into Standards between the first call and the decision in principle, and the adviser can check each value an agent writes in the record's history. The fact find, the sourcing and the suitability letter stay in your compliance and sourcing tools, and their PDFs go on the client's record.