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WHAT’S INSIDE 2-3 Industry updates and a note from Glenn King, PEXA CEO 4-5 Innovation in e-Conveyancing during FY20 6-7 Sparke Helmore Lawyers discuss cyber-security 8-11 CX leadership profile: Lisa Dowie 12-13 South Australia moves to fully digital settlements 14-15 LinkedIn tips and tricks pexa.com.au/propertynow
AUGUST 2020
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A note from Glenn King, PEXA CEO Welcome to the second edition of Property Now. Firstly, I’d like to congratulate South Australia for becoming the latest jurisdiction to introduce fully digital property transactions. This is a significant milestone as we progress toward a national e-Conveyancing standard for Australia’s homebuyers and sellers and is testament to the adaptability, collaboration and initiative shown by SA. In this month’s magazine, we’re excited to share our FY20 report with you, which details the outstanding results delivered consumers, whether online, over the by industry over the last 12 months. phone or face-to-face, to buy and Additionally, you’ll find the latest updates support local. from around the states, a glimpse into At this time, I must also acknowledge our PEXA’s customer experience journey, cyber-security guidance, tips to maximise colleagues in Victoria, who are currently navigating a difficult period. Rest assured your LinkedIn presence and more. that the PEXA team is here to support We’re committed to supporting the you and your businesses in the months to community now and through the months come. ahead, as we look to bounce back from We always welcome your feedback – if a testing 2020. I’m proud to announce you have a story idea, a comment or that we’ve partnered with Small Business Australia, joining the Buy Local you would like to contribute to a future publication, please email us at industry@ movement. pexa.com.au. Additionally, you can The campaign aims to support and subscribe here. celebrate small businesses – helping Stay safe and take care. Happy reading. them endure the economic impacts of COVID-19, driving awareness of Glenn King the current climate and encouraging PEXA CEO
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Around the grounds New South Wales and ACT PEXA is currently inviting members to register their interest in being activated for the ACT. Please note that only lawyers are eligible to transact in the territory. Additionally, per our latest platform release, a new settlement notification feature is now available. This change will enable members to upload and attach files, including the Order on the Agent PDF, to emails distributed upon settlement completion.
Victoria In exciting news, Victorian members can now order all of your property and council certificates on Marketplace via PEXA Plus – enabling you to conduct all your searches from one central location. Additionally, you can now download invoices for PEXA Exchange and Marketplace transactions in PEXA Plus (all jurisdictions). We’re here to support you through Stage 4 restrictions in metropolitan Melbourne and Stage 3 restrictions in regional Victoria. A friendly reminder that there is no change to PEXA’s service as a result of these announcements.
South Australia South Australia reached a significant milestone in August, with all eligible property transactions moving online. The state now joins Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia in leading the national shift. You can catch up with a Q&A discussing this transition hosted by the Office of the Registrar General, Land Services SA, Revenue SA and PEXA here.
Queensland It was a record month in Queensland for digital property settlements – with a 25% rise month-on-month as the market’s momentum builds steadily. Elsewhere, our latest platform release is now live – with the highlight being the introduction of a land title address lookup service. With address lookup, the address field automatically populates and refines as you type. For the latest updates and news, be sure to bookmark our QLD Community group.
Western Australia There was a 32.6% increase month-onmonth in digital property settlements in WA, as the industry continues its recovery to pre-COVID-19 volumes. Missed out on our PropertyX Connect Series event? View a recording at your convenience here – with the password propxconnect. A number of key topics were covered, including the latest WA property market insights, industry news, cybersecurity guidance, the PEXA roadmap and a panel session featuring guests from the AICWA, UDIA WA and CBA.
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PEXA 2019/20 Financial Year in Review
Innovation A world-first in property, we’re proud to partner with industry, delivering the home buyers and sellers of this country a fast, safe and efficient digital property settlement solution. But the job’s not done yet!
Member feedback inspires our innovation at PEXA – here’s an overview of how we’ve worked to enhance your digital experience over the last 12 months, as well as the outcomes you’ve driven within the property sector.
PEXA Exchange • A total of 264 platform enhancements were introduced within the PEXA platform, 88% of which were in response to member feedback and collaboration. • More than 2.4 million transactions, equating to $453 billion in value, were completed safely via the platform. • More than 1.3 million home buyers and sellers benefitted from a safe and more efficient property settlement experience. • During COVID-19, PEXA developed technologies to support the rapid digitisation of lodgements that were previously required to be physically submitted.
• PEXA’s technological infrastructure scaled with demand to continue to support the robust delivery of service, ensuring that settlements could still proceed during these unprecedented times.
PEXA Key • A secure app for practitioners and their clients to communicate trust or bank account details, mitigating today’s most prominent cyber threat, email phishing. • Home buyers and sellers, including organisations, can also track their settlements and refer to useful ‘what to expect’ articles and checklists to assist with their settlement. • More than 23,000 Australian home buyers and sellers used PEXA Key while settling their homes. 4
“Easy and convenient. Less work in terms of settlement.”
PEXA Plus Marketplace • Provides new capability for Victorian and New South Wales practitioners to compare prices and order title searches, with two available providers. • Enhanced the Marketplace user experience with a more seamless flow for ordering title and property searches. The focus has been on building out the integration with one of our providers, Equifax, to enrich the product offering with new property and council certificates for our Victorian members.
Coming soon: Enhanced Settlement Summary We know that one of the most critical steps in the settlement process is ensuring the Financial Settlement Schedule (FSS) is balanced and correct, ahead of time. This is one of the biggest contributing factors to a successful on-time settlement.
“Makes settlements easy and less time consuming.”
“The enhanced Financial Settlement Summary provides an actual and easy summary of the financials, which is clear and concise to read and understand.”
Leading up to settlement, late adjustments, unbalanced figures and last-minute Workspace conversations can all impact your experience – on both sides of the transaction.
provide a more intuitive experience for practitioners and financial institutions.
This has been identified as a major pain-point for members and an area you’ve wanted to see us innovate and streamline. That’s why in response to your feedback, we have developed an enhanced settlement summary that will
To help you navigate this change and allow for continued development and feedback of these solutions, we’re introducing the new features in a gradual roll-out over the coming months. Keep an eye out for more information!
PEXA Tracker launched December 2019 • PEXA Tracker provides transparency to client services teams in high settlement volume organisations, helping them communicate with home buyers, sellers or brokers, with real time, accurate updates on the status of a settlement.
Want to read our full 2019/20 report? Check it out here: https://www.pexa.com.au/news/pexa-2019-20-financial-year-in-review pexa.com.au/propertynow
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Firms need to gear up in the fight against cyber crime By Emanuel Oros, Partner, Sparke Helmore Lawyers
In today’s digital age, security cannot be an afterthought – proactive measures and education are necessary in order to minimise the risks presented. This is pertinent for the legal industry, particularly those practising within property law and facilitating settlements for homebuyers and sellers. Residential property is Australia’s largest asset class, worth $7.1 trillion1, which makes it an understandably attractive target for criminals and fraudsters. And the latest Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Scamwatch data is telling. 6
In 2019, phishing via email and phone – the apparent primary weapon of choice for hackers due to its low complexity and high success rate – scammed Australian businesses out of more than $1.5 million, almost doubling the losses experienced in 2017 and 20181. 1 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/about-scamwatch/scamstatistics?scamid=31&date=2019 2 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) https:// www.scamwatch.gov.au/about-scamwatch/scam-statistics?scamid=31&d ate=2020-01
This is a trend that has continued into 2020. The ACCC reported financial losses as a result of phishing to be $121,319 in January 2020 alone, nearly doubling that of January 20192. Further to this, the outbreak of COVID-19 sparked a surge of phishing attempts on unexpectant individuals seeking to benefit from the rushed approach of some parties to get up to speed with these types of transactions. The microscope is on legal practitioners now more than ever.
How firms can bolster their cyber security Fundamentally, we need to broaden our view of what being cyber-secure is. This calls for a holistic, 360-degree approach to security – and in particular, cyber-security. Constant education and briefing of staff, as well as instilling discipline and processes in securing operations is paramount. Critically, we must also embrace the technology available to us. A common misconception is that you need a big budget and sophisticated products to be cyber-secure. In reality, taking the time to review and maintain the technology within your organisation may likely bolster your firm’s security without significant cost. Technology should always be viewed as a tool in your toolbox – and tools need to be maintained and sometimes updated to ensure you can work at full efficiency. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has an established ‘essential eight’ list of strategies, which when used in combination may greatly protect against threats. There is also excellent technology
available to lawyers as well, including a range of trusted no-cost or low-cost anti-virus protection software to help safeguard your data. Industry specific solutions exist too. For example, with property settlements you can make use of free applications such as PEXA Key to enable your client, individual or organisation, to provide their bank account details for the transfer of funds in an encrypted environment – eliminating an otherwise significant risk for lawyers and clients alike. Trust account details can be communicated securely to the client via the app also. The industry has an obligation to its clients to continuously bolster its understanding of technology and with it, cyber-crime, something the legal profession has historically found challenging. This need not be a daunting task and by simply taking the time to review and prioritise your risk profile you can take control of your cyber-security and likely improve it through small inexpensive measures and better education and practices being implemented.
“We’re very close to 100% digital property transactions and industry is truly seeing the benefits of electronic lodgement. There are fewer errors with electronic transactions being lodged and the process is more seamless with greater transparency and certainty of the status of the transaction.” Ian Ireson, Chief Executive, Land Use Victoria.
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CX leadership profile: Lisa Dowie Chief Customer Officer, PEXA By Mark Atterby, CX Focus Magazine
Lisa Dowie, Chief Customer Officer for PEXA, explains how PEXA’s commitment to providing exceptional experiences for its members and employees has helped the organisation cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
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PEXA is an online property settlement platform used by 150 financial institutions as well as more than 9,000 legal and conveyancing firms across Australia. A world first, PEXA was founded in 2010. Until this point, property settlement in Australia involved an inefficient paper settlement process that had changed little in the previous 150 years. Dowie comments, “Prior to the establishment of PEXA – lawyers, conveyancers and representatives from the banks for both the buyer and the seller of a property would need to meet in a physical settlement room. They would swap loads of paperwork and bank cheques and take them away to be processed.” Now with PEXA, properties can be settled quickly and efficiently online. “The platform completes the lodgement with the land registry, registering the new owner of a title as well as transferring the necessary funds. PEXA’s members, the lawyers, the conveyancers, and representatives of the banks involved in settling properties no longer have to attend physical meetings or handle massive amounts of paperwork.”
“Today, 75% of all property settlements in the country now happen on PEXA. We have processed more than 5.6 million property settlement transactions which equates to about $950 billion in property value.”
The member experience journey Lisa Dowie joined PEXA as an IT project manager in the early stages of the platform being developed. She reflects, “The early days were really about building the platform. When that was done, we needed to start engaging with lawyers and conveyancers and getting them to use the platform. Viewing them as members rather than customers, we realised we needed to do more than build a technology platform. To deliver maximum benefit, we needed to put our members and the experience they have with us at the heart of everything we do.” Four years ago, Lisa moved out of her role in IT project management to become PEXA’s Chief Customer Officer. Lisa kickstarted PEXAs member experience journey by implementing three key initiatives, that included: 1. Obtaining executive and stakeholder ‘buy in’ 2. Investing in a member feedback program 3. Building an online community for members and PEXA employees
Obtaining executive ‘buy in’ The first stage in PEXA’s member experience journey was to garner support from the executive team. Without that it would be almost impossible to move forward. Dowie presented a strategy of what she wanted to do and what she expected that would achieve. She says, “We shared a lot of stories about what other businesses were doing here in Australia and overseas, highlighting what were global best practices.”
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“We wanted to set the expectation for our leadership team and help them understand that the customers of today expect that same experience whether that’s on Netflix or whether it’s their internet banking. Everybody wants this seamless, frictionless experience. That’s what we wanted to deliver at PEXA as well.” Lisa received enthusiastic support from the CEO to make the necessary investments and commence the journey.
Member feedback After experimenting with manual systems such as Survey Monkey, PEXA invested in a comprehensive feedback solution from Medallia. This solution was integrated into the PEXA platform. “We can trigger surveys for any transaction completed in our platform and we have an ‘always on feedback’ functionality so that our members can provide us feedback at any point in time. This means we can see how members are responding to any enhancements we make to the platform and share any feedback to make improvements quickly.” “Every PEXA employee has the opportunity to see feedback coming back from our members in real time on an app on their mobile phone”, says Dowie. “As well as tracking Net Promoter Score (NPS) we also use Member Effort Scores (MES) to obtain feedback on how easy it is for members to complete transactions.”
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Online community A critical step to put members at the heart of everything was the establishment of an online community and forum. “It allowed our members, with their peers, to come in and share their stories, raise ideas or ask questions. It also allowed them to interact with our PEXA team.” “One of the other things that we did which proved really successful was bringing our members into the culture that we have. PEXA is really a people first business. We have a great culture and we realised that we needed our members to experience that culture and create a deeper connection.”
“We started running open days, where we threw the doors open, normally on a Friday lunchtime, and invited our members to come in and see what happened behind the scenes.” “Obviously, this was prior to COVID- 19. Members would get to meet the teams they wouldn’t normally get to interact with, whether it was our technology team or our testing team or our people and culture team. They loved seeing the people they called into in our support centre.”
COVID 19 and lockdown restrictions “Given that we’re a digital, agile business,
and one highly committed to the experience and levels of service we provide members, we were in a pretty good shape to respond to the COVID-19 crisis and the restrictions it has imposed. In fact, our ability to adapt has meant that during the crisis we have managed to significantly improve our NPS and MES.” During the crisis PEXA has also stayed very focused on the employee experience. The safety and wellbeing of their employees (physically and emotionally) has been a top priority. “We can’t provide a great a member experience without a great employee experience. It’s our people, whether it’s the support centre or account management teams, it’s the people in the teams that interact with our members daily that makes all the difference.”
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The past, the present and the future – a South Australian reflection By Daniel Roesler, Executive Manager, Practitioner Services (SA)
The beginning and the benefits
Unprecedented capacity to There have been many people instrumental support clients to the industry’s transition and Rebecca Hayes, AICSA CEO since 2015, has been one of the industry’s key leaders. “As a former conveyancer and business owner, I saw the benefits e-conveyancing would bring to a business way back in 2004 when we started talking about this seriously.
Property transactions are inherently complex – and things don’t always go to plan. Jeff Stevens, Director at Stevens Partners, knows this very well. But his business can point to a matter that demonstrates how technology opens new doors and possibilities for supporting clients.
“Our firm completed a five-property sale and refinance deal involving 12 parties, “As our lives become more and more spread across three states – which influenced and enabled through digital solutions it made sense that the settlement was one of the most complex PEXA transactions completed. Apart from it of a conveyance would also move in this being a complicated transaction, it was direction. The efficiencies, transparency clear that using PEXA was the only way and agility of e-settlement are plainly the matter could be completed.” evident. “But what I saw as critical was the time a conveyancer could spend servicing their client. No longer spending hours each day travelling to the LTO to stand in queues, a focus could be made on working both on and in your business more effectively. “Using this time to build up relationships with key stakeholders, spending time with your client, considering contracts and advice more thoroughly and making time to invest in your own self development and wellbeing are all essential to growth as a business, a person and a team member.”
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Both practitioners and banks ultimately work to provide the best outcome for their mutual clients – the homebuyer and seller. Westpac’s Sarah Jewell recalls her ‘penny-drop’ moment – when she knew that digital settlements would be the way of the future. “Very early in our digital journey, I received a phone call from a Home Finance Manager regarding the need for an incredibly urgent settlement within the hour or one of our customers would have no home over the weekend.
“The practitioner was willing to do the settlement in PEXA, and we were able to get the entire settlement done from invitation to settlement in an hour. This kind of thing was unheard of in a paper environment. In that moment I knew we could deliver an amazing experience for customers.”
The future With more than 80% of property settlements already being processed electronically, the future looks bright for South Australia.
Casting an eye forward, Rebecca believes that this is only the beginning – and that industry will continue to go from strength to strength in the months and years ahead. “The value is immense, and I think we will look back in 10 years’ time astonished at just what that value actually is, there are still so many untapped and unknown benefits yet to emerge.
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Four tools to maximise your business potential With 700 million members dotted across more than 200 different countries and territories, LinkedIn is the world’s most powerful networking platform for professionals. In this article we highlight four of the easiest-to-use LinkedIn tools for professionals who are serious about maintaining a leading edge.
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1. Company page
3. Plugins
It’s one thing to have a personal profile on LinkedIn, but creating a company page is the first major step for gaining traction for your brand. It serves as free online exposure for your business, showcases your employees, and allows you to post company updates to attract new followers and connections.
LinkedIn’s range of free plugins work as an effective support tool for strengthening your connections with people who visit your main business website. Consider: • Follow Company plugin • Share plugin • LinkedIn AutoFill plugin
Of all the social media platforms, LinkedIn is also the most powerful way to direct traffic to your business website, outdoing Twitter and even Facebook in click-through statistics.
2. Publishing platform Another great way to make an impact as a conveyancing professional is by using the free LinkedIn publishing platform. Here you can share your industry knowledge and expertise, provide insights, and contribute valuable ‘think pieces’ which will appear in the news feeds of your connections and followers. Your articles will also show up in LinkedIn search results and internet search engines, connecting your business to LinkedIn’s global network and beyond.
When your website visitors can put a face to a name and learn more about your company through LinkedIn’s interactive channels, they may feel more confident and assured in calling for a chat about your services. By displaying strategic LinkedIn plugins on your website, you can transform casual web traffic into solid connections that not only expand your network, but also generate more interest in your business.
4. LinkedIn ads While LinkedIn offers a number of different advertising avenues to suit your budget, one thing they all have in common is the ability to build your ideal buyer persona so you can target the right audience for your business.
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