Lenders and brokers are dragging the chain when it comes to improving the online experience of home loan applicants. While a handful of lenders report that their customers are happy to use the internet for applications, right through to settlement, most borrowers are still dealing with paper-based applications and face-to-face meetings with their lenders.When Deloitte convened a roundtable of mortgage industry leaders recently, it asked them what improvements were needed in the mortgage market to benefit consumers. "Better digital access and enablement" was ranked one of the top priorities.One of Deloitte's roundtable participants, ANZ's general manager of mortgages and deposits, Brad Gravell, said: "The view that mortgages are complex and need to be dealt with by people rather than online won't hold true for too much longer. The evolution of the digital world will be one of the primary forces in our business."However, the chief executive of mortgage lender State Custodians, Heidi Armstrong, said it was the industry leaders who were holding back digital access.Armstrong said: "Something you hear a lot is that because the home loan is such a big commitment, borrowers want to sit down face-to-face with a lender or broker to discuss it."Our customers are comfortable going through online verification, accessing documents in PDF form and using digital signatures. We have done some upgrades recently and now the customer is managing a lot more of the process."The reason most people go through a mortgage application face-to-face is that the lenders who have most of the market share don't give them any other way of doing it."Another of Deloitte's roundtable participants, ING Direct's executive director of distribution, Lisa Claes, agreed. Claes said: "I think one of the impediments is complacency. The industry hasn't needed to embrace digital because of fat margins and credit growth. It is a lean cost model that drives digital innovation."Another roundtable participant, Commonwealth Bank's head of mortgages, Clive Van Horen, said: "From the broking side, the challenge is how do you embrace the digital world when you still have a very strong face-to-face proposition that is a key part of what brokers offer."Similarly, in the bank's own proprietary channels, how do you embrace digital along the way. I don't think there is any structural impediment. It's an investment challenge."Deloitte Digital partner Katherine Milesi said lenders and brokers had to look at the needs of different customer segments: investors may have been through the process before and be comfortable using an online channel; first-home buyers might need someone to hold their hand. Milesi said online should not be seen only as a competing distribution channel. Digital and face-to-face could work together. "If we look at large retailers, some chief executives may say that only three per cent of their sales go through the online channel, therefore it can't be that important. "But in fact 80 per cent of apparel sales are influenced by digital. It's not just fulfilment, it's the research that informs the purchase and encourages a customer to go into a store."