Digital mortgage lender Better acquires UK fintech Trussle
U.S. fintech Better, one of the fastest-growing digital homeownership platforms in the U.S., has announced its planned acquisition of United Kingdom-based company, Trussle. The acquisition will help Better enter the £1.5 Trillion mortgage market in the UK where it will replicate its success in the US.
In the United Kingdom, the mortgage process takes months to complete, with consumers paying thousands of points in fees and losing hours to needless frictions, all leading to a large number of Britons giving up on owning their own home and the national homeownership rate falling from 73% to 65% over the last 10 years.
“Better eliminates the high financing costs, massive transactional friction, tyranny and mind-numbing bureaucracy that comes with getting a mortgage and buying a home in the UK via a high street bank,” said Vishal Garg, Founder and CEO of Better. “We researched the UK market and were surprised to see how we could make it so much better for consumers buying and financing a home for the first time. We found a kindred spirit in the team at Trussle who have developed a platform that we can work alongside to help every Briton own their own home. Making homeownership affordable and accessible for all customers is a key tenet of a well-functioning credit system and we are here to help grow Trussle and make it even better.”
UK fintech Trussle is a digital mortgage and insurance broker based in the UK and founded in 2015 that provides high-quality, independent advice to customers who are looking to buy a home or refinance an existing mortgage. The company assesses customer suitability, provides advice on mortgage and protection products and interacts with over 90 lenders to close mortgages for UK home owners. Since inception, Trussle has sourced over £2.7 billion of mortgage approvals for UK consumers with GBP £1.1 billion of that in the last 12 months.
“Better and Trussle were both founded on the understanding that consumers increasingly prefer to use online services to shop for and transact on major life purchases. It is 27 years since the World Wide Web was launched and most consumer industries have embraced it by now but the UK mortgage market is still characterized by analogue systems and processes. This market should not require consumers to apply for a mortgage 5 months before the end of the Stamp Duty holiday,” said Ian Larkin, CEO of Trussle. “We are very excited about becoming part of Better, and we are confident that Trussle’s future looks brighter than ever as part of a large and growing international organization that shares our commitment to making homeownership more simple, fair and accessible for all.”
Trussle will accelerate Better’s entry into the U.K. market with an experienced management team, local knowledge and foundational mortgage technology for the UK. Trussle captures critical data on customer demand, lender pricing and risk eligibility matrices that will provide valuable insights when analyzed using Better’s technology. Bringing together these data and capabilities will provide both organizations with unique strengths identifying underserved market segments and evaluating risk.
Better will enhance Trussle’s revenue profile by partnering with it to develop a pipeline of B2B relationships with estate agencies, property developers and financial services companies, invest in customer acquisition and drive attachment rates across product offerings, including insurance and title services (known as “conveyancing” in the U.K.).
The terms of the transaction are not disclosed, and is subject to the receipt of customary regulatory approvals in the United States and the United Kingdom. Ian Larkin and the existing management team will continue to lead Trussle following the acquisition.
