Nationwide Automated Income Verification

cahillg81

Is this going to be a good thing or a bad thing?

What say you?

Royster82

Depends on what your salary is....

I'm guessing you get the same amount paid in every month, and have done for some time so they don't really need to do many checks on the salary front.

However if this is a new thing, where they are just not really checking people wages and just going down automated on anyone's account, this could be a bad thing as this is how the banks got into the trouble the first time lending to people that could not afford future repayments

ACG

A couple of lenders do this. Barclays is another, but they still (or used to) also ask for payslips. So it seemed a pointless exercise on their side.

rtho782

Interesting, I wonder how much they will flag.

For example, I got a mortgage with them in 2016, if they look at the turnover rates of our bank accounts (which are with Nationwide) they will find about 2x as much going in as our salaries would suggest, as I have contracting income of more than my salary in my main job.

I hadn't been doing it 2 years so didn't declare it as income to Nationwide (although the adviser was aware of it, it wasn't on the application).

Would they have flagged me for earning too much, or would I have been able to get a larger mortgage with it?

muhandis

Based on this story http://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/current-accounts/90pc-of-bank-customers-unaware-their-income-details-are-tracked/ , it appears that banks have been passing on data about incoming payments to customer accounts to credit reference agencies for quite a while now. The credit reference agencies process this information (all automated) to build a picture of the customer's income.

I assume this 'income profile' is then available for sale by financial institutions or used by the credit reference agencies as a tool when working with banks on applications for credit.

I wonder how they treat variable income like mine where my basic fixed salary is only a small portion of my income with the rest made up of extremely variable commission and bonus income. My income might be 1x in Dec, and 5-6x during busier periods.

My beef with all this is that whatever automation they use will invariably throw up incorrect or incomplete information for people with non fixed paye income and would be practically impossible to correct, as the statutory credit report we get doesn't show this and doubtless banks will refuse to tell us why were rejected let alone what our income was reported to be in case an application is rejected.

Based on my interactions with NW, I will give them the benefit of the doubt though. They have been among the very few banks/bs who still have manual processes which can look at and override 'computer says no' kind of issues.

Thrugelmir

Is this automated check linked to the HMRC's database?

cahillg81

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Is this automated check linked to the HMRC's database?

I honestly don't know.

When I was at Nationwide and heard they were doing this I thought it was a pipedream.

My personal situation for example would be clear as mud on things like this. I'm self employed and have my own limited company my proc fees and broker fees go into a business account I then put a bit into my current account each month to cover bills/mortgage etc I then give myself some spending money in cash. Put some into savings, put some to cover the tax etc etc.


I get this isn't for everyone but I'm not so sure I like the idea of the bank/building society making this information available.

ACG

It's for employed people. Each time you are paid it gets recorded with hmrc. I remember I supplied 25 payslips to Barclays for a client when they asked for 26 (my mistake). They knew how much the latest payslip was for to the penny, the applicants payslip was different every week depending on her hours and commission.

kingstreet

Lenders can use the HMRC link for £14 a pop, but I've heard of none actually doing so yet.

Have had a couple of Halifax and Santander cases where income was confirmed electronically but none with Nationwide.

As we have to obtain three months payslips, P60 and three months bank statements anyway, it doesn't make much difference uploading one pdf fewer...