Chorley Building Society Goes Live with LendingMetrics' Auto Decision Platform

Chorley Building Society has fully integrated LendingMetrics’ Auto Decision Platform (ADP), moving its mortgage underwriting process toward a semi-automated model. For fintech professionals, this shift highlights the ongoing modernization of the UK’s building society sector, where traditional mutuals are increasingly adopting real-time decisioning tools to compete with digital-first lenders on speed and efficiency.

What was announced

Chorley Building Society has completed the final phase-in of the Auto Decision Platform (ADP) from LendingMetrics, with the system now fully operational across its lending business. The Society selected the platform following a comprehensive review of alternative solutions in the market. A primary driver for the selection was the platform’s ability to execute sophisticated customer assessments in milliseconds, a capability intended to significantly reduce the volume of manual intervention required by human underwriters.

The implementation features a web-based editor that allows the Society’s internal teams to manage and modify lending criteria without external technical support. This functionality enables the institution to adjust its risk algorithms and policy parameters in-house and in real-time. By moving to this semi-automated model, Chorley Building Society aims to deliver individual lending decisions at a pace comparable to larger clearing banks while maintaining the specific risk appetites of a regional mutual. The platform is designed to handle complex data sets to provide these instant outcomes, ensuring that both customers and mortgage intermediaries receive faster responses to applications.

"Having sophisticated automated decisioning is becoming an essential ingredient for lenders wanting to maximise service levels with both customers and intermediaries. Chorley Building Society's investment places it in a very strong position going forward because ADP not only allows it to execute sophisticated and individual decisions in real-time, but also modify policies, algorithms and risk appetite instantly too."

David Wylie, Commercial Director of LendingMetrics

The companies involved

LendingMetrics is a UK-based fintech firm that specializes in credit risk software and decisioning solutions. The company provides a suite of data-driven tools designed to help lenders automate credit searches and underwriting workflows. In late 2024, the firm secured significant backing from the private equity firm LDC, a move intended to support its continued growth within the financial services technology sector. LendingMetrics has positioned itself as a key partner for mid-tier lenders looking to modernize their legacy credit processes.

Chorley Building Society is a traditional UK mutual organization providing savings and mortgage products. As a building society, it is owned by its members rather than shareholders, a structure that historically emphasized manual, "common sense" underwriting over automated systems. However, like many regional societies, it is currently navigating a period of digital transition. By adopting third-party fintech solutions like ADP, the Society is attempting to bridge the gap between its member-focused heritage and the high-speed expectations of the modern mortgage market, particularly when dealing with brokers who prioritize rapid turnaround times for their clients.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has tracked the digital evolution of both organizations as they modernize their operations. In late 2024, we reported that Chorley Building Society Partners With TCS for Digital Transformation, a move aimed at upgrading its core banking infrastructure. On the fintech side, we covered how LDC Backs Fast-growing Fintech LendingMetrics to accelerate its market reach. Additionally, LendingMetrics has been expanding its leadership team to support this growth, as seen when LendingMetrics Appoints Jamie Land as Head of Presales to Drive Credit Risk Innovation. These developments underscore a period of rapid scaling for the technology provider and a concerted effort by the Society to overhaul its legacy systems.

What this means

This implementation reflects a critical pressure point in the UK mortgage market: the "speed to offer." While large clearing banks have the capital to build proprietary automated systems, regional building societies are increasingly turning to specialized fintech partners to remain competitive. The move to semi-automation is a pragmatic middle ground for mutuals; it preserves the human oversight necessary for complex cases while removing the manual drag from standard applications. However, this shift puts pressure on other mid-tier lenders who still rely on multi-day underwriting queues. The industry-wide question now is whether these rapid decisioning tools will eventually lead to a complete commoditization of the mortgage process, potentially eroding the manual underwriting that building societies have long used as a competitive differentiator.