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They think it’s all oVAR...

The beautiful game is changing beyond recognition, with lessons for closer to home

Norman Chambers Managing Director NACFB

As the pubs start to fill and huddles begin to form around long-since dormant office water coolers, you can guarantee it will not be too long before the universally divisive issue of football’s VAR returns. A colleague of mine was recently bemoaning the impact VAR is having on the game and I realised that there were learnings from its failings that directly apply to our own sector. Indulge me for one moment...

Don’t mention the VAR

Following a trial of video assisted referees (VAR) at the 2018 World Cup, the English Football Association (FA) deemed the technological advances both practical and suitable enough to implement more widely across their flagship Premier League.

Supporters were promised faster and more accurate decisions and an implementation that would aid, not undermine, the on-field referee. All whilst providing for an overall better fan experience. Gone would be the frustratingly glaring errors, gone would be the agonisingly unjust decisions, gone also would be the wider confusion. This ‘silVAR bullet’ was set to revolutionise the game as we knew it.

But way back when this, now elongated, football season began, there were some early signs that all was not as promised. It started with confusion. Initially this was put down to teething problems in adapting to both the new technologies and processes, but as the season progressed, the objections grew. Now, as the season is finally drawing to a close, you won’t find many football fans that will disagree with you when you say that VAR’s implementation has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. The system’s application has been the subject of scrutiny even amongst those who were broadly in favour of its deployment.

In short, verdicts are taking much longer to arrive at, and justifications are not always clear or indeed visible to those in the stadium. Referees are clearly not yet comfortable with the system and ultimately decisions are still being made remotely by a human, and therefore still prone to error, albeit to a lesser degree.

Most supporters, and those invested in the game, simply want match officials to be assisted in reaching the correct decisions – and not to take all day about it. VAR struggles in both regards and too often fails in the first. For all the investment and all the ceremony, the decisions are largely still reliant on human interpretation – and the technology has seemingly hindered as much as it has helped.

Am I reading the right magazine?

If you’re not a fan of sporting analogies that are stretched well beyond recognition, you may want to stop reading here – but I would encourage you to stick with me; for there are some interesting parallels that are worth exploring. Here in the lending community we are all familiar with drives for technological aids and new platforms to help make decisions faster, with greater accuracy whilst providing a better experience for both broker and client. Similar trials, akin to the first VAR World Cup, have been launched by some well-intentioned lenders and technology platforms, but they would do well to learn from the FA’s mistakes.

The lenders (in this case the FA) are keen to ensure that processes are kept efficient and reputations remain intact. Funders are putting pressure on the brokers (the referee) to adapt to new technologies and this can sometimes have the knock-on effect of undermining their experience, skills and knowledge. Furthermore, with one platform yet to emerge above all others, brokers are forced down a route of maintaining logins to various portals with varying requirements just to upload the basic client information. This is not so resource intensive if you’re a bigger (or Premier League) Member, but for the NACFB’s sole trader Members this time and resource is arguably more valuable.

“Similar trials to the first VAR World Cup have been launched by some well-intentioned lenders, but they’d do well to learn from the FA’s mistakes

Finally, you have the client (the fans) and this is where experience really matters. If there’s one thing we can takeaway from the lockdown games, it’s just how vital fans are to the game. It’s a little like ‘bad toupée syndrome’, in that a great wig would never look like a wig, but we’ve all seen incredibly bad ones in our time. That’s how technology should feel in the lifecycle of a commercial deal, it should be seamless and largely unnoticed.

VAR’s well-intentioned introduction forgot about the crucial element of experience. Even the most sophisticated algorithm is very unlikely to be able to account for the myriad factors that are considered when making a commercial underwriting decision, and the broker’s knowledge and insight at this stage remains critical. Being able to communicate clearly to a client why a request has been turned down is best done through a human, rather than an auto-generated email of a simple rejection note on a platform.

Brokers do not want their clients to be left confused, unsure of what verdict has been arrived at and why or experience lengthy delays before a decision is made. The broker can help both reduce and negate this. If we tip the balance too far away from the adviser, we enter a netherworld that makes nobody’s boat go faster.

Where can technology aid the process?

There are though some sports where technology has aided both the accuracy of decisions and the fan experience for the better. Take tennis and cricket. Here, the Hawk-Eye advances have generally been warmly received.

Perhaps the closest direct comparison to football’s VAR, is rugby’s introduction of the television match official (TMO). At the risk of contorting this analogy yet further, I see rugby’s use of technology as more comparable to the residential mortgage market; in that it already exists in a well-regulated environment. Football, like commercial lending, can require subtler interpretations and, dare I say it, the financial stakes are often even higher.

The challenge, and it is critical more than ever in a post-COVID world, will be to embrace the technological solutions that complement the existing processes. Much like the footballing offside decisions that rest upon a millimetre of a player’s shoulder, automated underwriting processes that do not consider the full complexities of a business and it’s cashflow will likely be a recipe for disaster.

Harmonising two cultures

Okay, let’s talk more clearly now, and step outside of the sports arena. Simply put, technology has its place in the intermediary-led commercial market, there are parts of the process that can no doubt be aided through technology, be it document collection, background checking or regulatory reporting, but there must always be a space for the trusted broker adviser.

The broker community should not be seen a luddite one though. Far from it. We are seeing many of our Members make huge technological strides, through a variety of apps, back office software and online lending aggregators.

Progress will always have a large impact on the relationship between the client and intermediary. But brokers remain resilient and adaptable, and, backed by a forward-thinking and independent trade body like the NACFB, our Members will continue to provide their clients with the choice, the advice, and the expertise through whatever available avenue.

As a trade body we always want to see greater lender and broker collaboration, it’s one of our core remits. Just like how it’s in no one’s interest to see an on-field referee undermined and lose control of an outcome, brokers should remain central to the development and implementation of new technological advances. It’s a little like ‘bad toupée “ syndrome’, in that a great wig would never look like a wig, but we’ve all seen incredibly bad ones in our time. That’s how technology should feel in the lifecycle of a commercial deal