The challenge
Gatehouse Bank needed to speed up property valuations for its Home Purchase Plan and buy-to-let customers without compromising the accuracy or regulatory standing of the valuations themselves. Traditional panel-based processes, while reliable, were adding days to a customer journey the bank wanted to make faster and smoother, particularly for properties up to £1 million and finance-to-value ratios of up to 75% on purchases and 80% on refinancing.
The solution
Gatehouse Bank ran a three-month pilot integrating Finvise's hybrid valuation platform into its financing process. Finvise combines proprietary valuation technology built in-house with mandatory human oversight: every valuation produced on the platform is reviewed and signed off by a RICS-qualified surveyor before it reaches the finance provider, rather than being issued as a fully automated output. As a RICS-regulated firm, Finvise gave Gatehouse a way to accelerate the process without stepping outside the standards a Red Book valuation is expected to meet.
The pilot covered Home Purchase Plan and buy-to-let applications within Gatehouse's existing criteria and ran alongside the bank's standard process so results could be compared directly.