Absa has revolutionsed the mortage loan process with the country's first start to end electronic application prtocess which enables Absa Bank to grant home loans in principle up to the registration within hours.

The new Internet-based system, Automatic Valutation System (Auto-val), has been fully integrated into Absa's home loans mortage process. Absa is the leading mortage lender in the country.

'The system took 18 months of intense development to get it fully integrated to the point where we are confident it will estimate the valuation of a property, even to the point of doing the standard credit check of the applicant and registration,' explains Joe Kondos, national manager, Valuations Technology, within REAM.

Auto-val utilises a property knowledge base to estimate the value of the property by instantly comparing it with the value of previous transactions for the sale of similar properties in the area.

It is capable of compiling electronic valuations for mortage loan purposes on new loans, further advances and sectional title properties at present.

The property assessment range is from R 10,000 to R 1,2 m with preliminary tests indicating a tolerable accuracy variance when compared with a traditional human-intervention valuation process - except the initial Auto-val valuation estimates are done in seconds as opposed to the time consuming traditional process.