Mark Blackwell takes a look at how richer datasets and smarter workflow tools are improving speed, accuracy and sustainability outcomes in mortgage lending.
Last month we were able to announce an important partnership with Yorkshire Building Society. The society has accelerated its digital transformation by adopting our Lender Hub, a centralised intelligence engine. By integrating real-time property data with automated valuation models, the platform enables instantaneous, risk-adjusted decision-making.
The partnership marks a notable moment not only for Yorkshire Building Society, but for the wider mortgage market, as lenders increasingly turn to richer datasets and smarter workflow tools to improve speed, accuracy and sustainability outcomes in mortgage lending.
Navigating a shifting lending landscape
For a sector navigating complex regulatory demands, rising climate-risk scrutiny, and shifting customer expectations, the ability to access trustworthy property intelligence at pace is becoming essential. Yorkshire Building Society’s decision to expand its digital capabilities with Cotality is indicative of a broader industry shift where decisioning quality, data provenance, and operational efficiency sit at the heart of competitive advantage.
For Yorkshire Building Society, the partnership aligns directly with its transformation strategy. It has been steadily modernising its mortgage processes in recent years, with a sustained focus on improving member experience while strengthening overall risk management. Incorporating EPC data into mainstream decisioning represents the next step in this journey. It is not the end.
Environmental responsibility
The deal will deliver both efficiency and sustainability but also plays to broader lender priorities. As intermediaries will know, mortgage approvals are increasingly influenced not just by valuation accuracy but by the growing need to understand how resilient a property may be to tightening environmental standards. Lenders are preparing for future regulatory changes around energy performance, while homebuyers and remortgagers increasingly want clarity on energy-efficiency costs. Building societies like Yorkshire Building Society, with their member-led ethos and deep regional ties, are particularly attuned to this shift.
While the mortgage market has long used data services, their role has shifted from passive analytics to active enablers of the customer journey.
With the integration of Cotality’s lender hub services, Yorkshire Building Society gains access to a system that blends advanced modelling techniques with real-world market data to produce valuations in seconds.
These capabilities matter. Faster valuation outcomes mean quicker time to offer, fewer manual interventions, and reduced reliance on full physical inspections - particularly in lower-risk scenarios. Data services will also produce huge efficiencies for all in the value chain when it comes to managing and handling post valuation queries. At a time when speed remains a competitive differentiator for lenders and a service expectation among brokers, Data offers an important lever for balancing precision with efficiency.
Data services are not only about speed. They support stronger risk governance. By delivering valuation estimates, comparables, confidence scores and property attributes within a unified workflow, lenders can calibrate decisions with greater consistency. For organisations undertaking large-scale digital modernisation, that consistency and the ability to evidence it carries real value.
The integration of EPC information and more granular energy-efficiency indicators may ultimately prove just as valuable. Lenders across the UK are preparing for a mortgage landscape where climate-risk assessments and energy-performance transparency become the norm. Even with shifting government timelines, the direction of travel is unambiguous: better data, clearer reporting, and increasing
regulatory interest in heat demand, insulation levels and carbon-reduction pathways.
Empowering Brokers with integrated property intelligence
For brokers, this trend is already filtering into conversations with landlords, homeowners and remortgagers seeking to understand what their properties’ EPC profiles mean for borrowing. For lenders, the ability to view energy performance characteristics at the point of decisioning brings several advantages from long-term risk modelling and capital planning to supporting customers with retrofit pathways.
Cotality’s Lender Hub delivers this intelligence directly into lending workflows, helping risk teams and underwriters understand both the property and its future performance potential.
For brokers working with Yorkshire Building Society, the announcement signals a further enhancement of the society’s service proposition. Faster valuations mean quicker movement from application to offer which is a benefit that is particularly relevant in competitive purchase chains or where customers need clarity on borrowing capacity at speed.
It also reflects a wider pattern intermediaries should watch closely: the increasing fusion of valuation intelligence, energy data and risk analytics within mainstream mortgage processing.
As lenders adopt richer datasets, brokers may increasingly encounter more nuanced underwriting questions around EPC status, retrofit potential, property comparables and automated confidence scores. Being fluent in these areas will become a differentiator in its own right.
Shift in thinking
Ultimately, the partnership between Yorkshire Building Society and Cotality underscores a shift in how lenders think about property risk, sustainability and operational performance. With the mortgage market placing greater emphasis on transparency, accuracy and digital agility, collaborations like this are poised to reshape how decisions are made and how quickly customers receive those decisions.
