2020 in review
Lee Flavin and Chris Evans (founders of Accelerate My Mortgage) look back on a launch year like no other! 🚀
[LF] 2020 started really well 🤣 We launched Accelerate My Mortgage in February following an intense year of research and development, and hit the ground running by reaching out to the press about our unique service.
The concept of turning everyday retail purchases into automated mortgage overpayments proved to be a winner, with thousands of homeowners signing up in record time following national coverage from Mortgage Solutions, The Sun, The Mirror and The Times.
But around a month later…
COVID-19 😷
[CE] Overpayments quickly became low-priority for most, as millions of homeowners turned their attention to applying for Government-backed payment holidays to ease the financial strain of the pandemic.
But lenders were really struggling with office closures and staff shortages, meaning existing customers were experiencing very lengthy call waiting times.
So we set up a dedicated support channel in March (email and WhatsApp) to keep our users fully informed about the latest mortgage market developments, and to offer our support in any way possible.
This enabled to us to guide them through the online forms lenders made available via their websites, and we were also able to apply our proven rate switching model to reduce monthly mortgage payments for lots of homeowners over the next few months – even if they had been ‘furloughed’ by their employer.
100 retailers 💷
[LF] After launching with just over 40 retailers, our aim was to get to 100 by the end of the year.
We hit this milestone in November, and created a comprehensive ‘Retailers’ page to provide our users with an overview of the cashback rates applicable for each one.
We’ve successfully paid out thousands of pounds in Mortgage Rewards since the onset of COVID-19, and we look forward to adding many more popular retailers to our platform in the coming months.
Innovation 📱
[CE] Thanks to the continuous support of the Welsh Government and Homamo throughout 2020, we’ve also been hard at work in recent months building our eagerly awaited mobile app.
We’ll be rolling out an iOS version in early 2021, with an Android version to follow soon after.
And after the huge success of our recent prize draw competition, we’ll be aiming to run another one (in conjunction with the roll out of our app).
Our two lucky winners were Nichola from Barry in South Wales and Laura from Fife in Scotland.
You can read about how they each won a month off their mortgage here – just in time for Christmas! 🎄
