Lucero AI platform from VAMOS helps Haydock Finance deliver faster service to brokers

Haydock Finance has successfully deployed Lucero, the AI-powered operations platform from VAMOS, across its new business proposal workflow. Nine months on from go-live, with Lucero now firmly embedded in Haydock’s day-to-day operations, the platform has more than doubled the monthly volume of broker proposals Haydock’s team is able to handle – materially supporting 30% business growth at Haydock in Q1 2026

Lucero went live at Haydock in September 2025, following a rapid four month implementation. Since October 2025, 100% of inbound broker proposals at Haydock have flowed through the platform, making the company one of the first UK specialist lenders to put AI into full production use for handling new business.

The deployment has cut average proposal processing time from approximately 20 minutes down to just 6 minutes – a 65% reduction – and is helping Haydock to serve more brokers and customers without growing headcount.

The lender has grown its book from approximately £150 million to around £940 million over the past seven years while maintaining industry-leading service to its broker community – currently turning around one-day broker payouts at scale, even as it recorded its strongest-ever first quarter in 2026. Haydock is also actively expanding into new product areas including materials handling and green asset finance, supported by subject-matter experts working alongside its broker network.

Andy Taylor, Managing Director and Chief Commercial Officer at Haydock Finance, said: “Technology with a purpose is really important to us.

“There’s no value in someone in our team sitting at a desk re-keying an email into a system — that’s exactly the kind of work Lucero takes away, freeing our people to focus on broker relationships, deal quality and the next phase of Haydock’s growth. It’s better for our team, better for our brokers, and better for the customers they serve.”

Before Lucero, broker proposals arrived at Haydock by email with multiple attachments in different formats. A team member had to open every attachment, find the relevant data, and re-key it into Haydock’s core lending platform. The work was repetitive, potentially error-prone, and was a constraint on Haydock’s ability to scale new business volumes.

Lucero connects directly to Haydock’s proposal inbox in Outlook, and its Odessa core system, taking inbound broker proposals from email through to a structured submission in Odessa, ready for underwriting. Haydock’s team is freed to focus on the quality of the proposal data and on broker relationships – and brokers see dramatically faster decisions as a result.

Unlike autonomous AI agents, Lucero never executes a downstream action without explicit human approval. Every AI suggestion, user decision, and change is captured in a clear audit trail. The platform runs on an enterprise-grade Google Cloud deployment, and no customer data is used for model training at any time. VAMOS was selected for the FCA AI Spotlight programme under the Compliance and Automation theme.

Christian Brough, Head of Platform Solutions at Haydock Finance, commented: “The time savings that we’ve seen have been very significant. We’re really encouraged by that. We’re still keeping the human, our people in the driving seat, but it’s really cutting times on those processes quite dramatically.”

Initial team apprehension turned, in Brough’s words, into “real positivity” as Lucero removed the most repetitive parts of the day and let the team focus on data quality and higher-value work.

“We’re delighted that Haydock have seen such success with implementing Lucero in their originations workflow, delivering dramatically faster and higher quality service to brokers, and we look forward to working with them to bring the same benefits to other areas of their business,” said Richard Huston, Managing Director at VAMOS.

“Our approach with Lucero ensures the human remains in the driving seat, which aligns with Haydock’s focus on the importance of broker and customer relationships – AI can’t replace that human element, but it can free teams from repetitive admin work and allow them to focus on providing the best service possible.”

With proposal processing successfully embedded, Haydock and VAMOS are exploring further opportunities to extend Lucero across Haydock’s operations.

For more on the deployment, watch the 10-minute video with Christian Brough at https://www.youtube.com/@haydockfinance2536/podcasts, or read the full case study at https://www.vamos.dev/haydock-case-study.