7 minute read
product to Australia
by Key Media
NEWS TECHNOLOGY
CBA DIGITAL TOOL SAVES CUSTOMERS $481M
THE Benefi ts Finder tool provided by Commonwealth Bank has helped its customers save $481m on utility bills and extra government payments. The tool, released in September 2019 as a feature of CBA’s mobile application, enables customers to access 270 government rebates and benefi ts, and has helped process over a million claims. NSW reported the highest number of claims at roughly 400,000. CBA customers can access benefi ts such as the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment, Dine & Discover NSW, COVID Land Tax Relief and SME loan guarantee schemes. The most popular types of claims accessed by customers include unclaimed money on a federal and state level, unclaimed super, the Power Saving Bonus, Jobseeker-related payments, family tax benefits, rent assistance, and family energy rebates.
NODIFI PRODUCT TARGETS ASSET FINANCE BROKERS
RISING asset fi nance fi ntech Nodifi is to o er a new bespoke product to help brokers navigate the new best interest duty regulations. It represents a concerted e ort to bring brokers back to asset fi nance after many departed due to the new rules, which reduced commissions for brokers and dissuaded many from engaging with consumer-facing asset work. Nodifi ’s Alex Ventura said the product allows brokers to set fi xed rates for consumer asset fi nance, with commission included. With BID, he said, “brokers had to dial down rates to the base rates as that is in the best interest of the consumers. When they do that, they don’t earn a commission on it”. The benefi t of Nodifi ’s fi xed rates is that “the commission is already inclusive in what that has been dialled up to”, Ventura said.
Samina Hussain-Letch Head of industry and payments, Square Australia
Samina Hussain-Letch, head of industry and payments, Square Australia
SQUARE TO LAUNCH NEW SME LOAN PRODUCT IN AUSTRALIA
Fintech payments platform Square is making a move into the SME space in Australia, introducing its fi rst lending product outside the US
ONE of the most recognisable fi ntech start-ups in recent years, Square Australia is set to enter the loan space in this country through a new fi nancial services product, Square Loans.
It will be the payment platform’s fi rst venture into fi nancial services, o the back of its lending product in the US. Square’s US arm has already fi nanced over US$8bn in loans to almost half a million small businesses.
“It’s our fi rst fi nancial services product to launch here, and the fi rst time we’re launching outside the US,” said Square Australia head of industry and payments Samina Hussain-Letch.
“The timing is very intentional because we’re now seeing businesses need to access alternative forms of lending more than ever. Coming out of COVID, businesses are in recovery mode and are often underserved. There’s often big hurdles in accessing capital, and Square is here to fi x that gap.
“We’ve been testing the product for the past couple of months, and we’re planning to make it available this quarter. The whole premise is to make access to capital fair and fl exible … in a traditional loan application there’s loads of paperwork and often personal guarantees, for example against
SMALL BUSINESS PERCEPTION OF ACCESS TO FINANCE
ppt Net balance*
ppt a family home. We’re not asking for any guarantees for loans up to $75,000, and there’s also no paperwork involved.”
Square is looking to draw on reams of client data, generated through its sales product, to help make responsible lending decisions and improve turnaround times.
“We are making decisions based on the data that we have on our sellers and o ering them a loan,” said Hussain-Letch. “If they choose to accept or to accept less than what we are o ering, they can do that within three clicks and apply for the loan. Once they’re approved, they get the funds the next business day.”
There is no interest rate on Square loans – just one fi xed fee that the seller is told about up front and can be paid over the life of the loan. The repayment is based on a percentage of the seller’s daily sales.
Sources: RBA, Sensis
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0
-10
-20 10
0
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*Net balance is the di erence between the percentage of fi rms indicating access is relatively easy and those indicating access is relatively di cult
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TECHNOLOGY UPDATE
MAXIMISING TECH TOOLS LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD FOR AMB
Anup Munankarmi, Head of Broker Channel, Australian Military Bank
A key component of Australian Military Bank’s success in the broker market is its streamlining of key application documents and data capture with NextGen.Net’s industry-leading lodgement solution, ApplyOnline.
“When we fi rst ventured into the broker market in 2015, we were doing almost everything manually,” recalls AMB’s Head of Broker Channel, Anup Munankarmi.
“Fast-forward six years and with NextGen.Net’s support we are now taking the entire application online, including all compliance requirements and all the supporting documents.
“ApplyOnline integrates seamlessly into our core system; and in reality, we’re now providing a one-stop shop for pretty much all the applicant’s details,” he says.
Member-owned AMB has 50,000 members across Australia. It is Australia’s longest-serving fi nancial institution for those in the Defence community, but it’s open to everyone.
“We’re a niche bank supporting Australia’s Defence community. Defence is at the core of what we do at AMB. We’re one of only three banks in Australia that can o er subsidised loans to eligible Australian Defence Force personnel,” says Munankarmi.
“But while the majority of our loans are for current and former Australian Defence Force personnel and their families, we also work with members outside Defence and pride ourselves on maintaining a strong relationship with our members when they transition to civilian life.
“We’re also a participating lender in the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, which has attracted many non-Defence personnel to our business as we help a wider range of Australians achieve the dream of home ownership.”
By upgrading its ApplyOnline o ering with the ‘Supporting Docs’ service and Compliance tab, AMB demonstrated its commitment to the broker channel to o er its home loan products in a quality and streamlined way.
In 2019, AMB activated NextGen.Net’s ‘Combined Industry Compliance’ tab into its ApplyOnline solution to bring the bank in line with other lenders and o er the standardised capture of responsible lending requirements expected by broker groups and brokers.
“The addition of the Compliance tab and Supporting Docs has seen a drastic reduction in the amount of rework on applications,” says Munankarmi.
In July and August 2020, AMB experienced considerable growth and correspondingly enabled scalability through the e ciencies o ered by the Compliance tab and improved usage of the Supporting Documents service.
“AMB’s uplift of technology with NextGen enables them to compete with larger lenders and have all the e ciencies and tools that brokers need to seamlessly write a home loan,” says NextGen.Net Customer Account Manager Steven Hudson.
“From a regulatory perspective, they’re now live with the Compliance tab. That means brokers can complete all their regulatory requirements in an automated fashion. AMB is a great example of a smaller player harnessing technology to achieve substantial growth and successfully compete with the big players.”
AMB has also been working hard to reduce its reliance on printed material.
“Everything is online now apart from signatures, which are coming soon,” says Munankarmi.
“Our broker portal is a one-stop shop, containing all the required policy documents, calculators, as well as real-time SLAs!
“ApplyOnline enables us to track applications, improve our response times to brokers and manage SLAs, reduce rework on applications and communicate with our brokers via backchannel messages, which allows us to provide responses to the broker through a series of clicks in that platform.”
By optimising available tech tools, AMB has seen signifi cant volume growth through the broker channel. Now that it has the facility to scale with these tools, it is looking to expand and incorporate additional broker groups.
“We are defi nitely looking to grow,” confi rms Munankarmi.
“As demand for our niche has increased, we’ve increased our broker team to better serve our brokers. We’ve been approached by a number of new aggregators, so expect our presence to continue to expand. We want our products to be available to most brokers in Australia.
“We get regular updates from NextGen about enhancements to make the broker experience better, which is always front of mind for us. We strive for a 24-hour SLA and we have a team to do the pre-assessment work to make the whole experience for the broker a lot easier.”
Noting that AMB was an early adopter of ApplyOnline’s dynamic compliance solution, Hudson says he is also working closely with the bank, utilising NextGen.Net’s Industry Benchmark service “so they can see where they sit in respect to market standards and if necessary adopt further changes to reduce their time to yes”.
“I get a great deal of satisfaction providing plug and play access to tools for AMB. They always ensure that the right product is being suggested to the client, and our technology enables them to compete at the e ciency level of the big banks,” says Hudson.
Steven Hudson, Customer Account Manager, NextGen.Net
