5 minute read
PEPPER SPONSORED CONTENT
Pepper Money leading the way with real life help
BY MICHELLE SARGEANT
Michelle Sargeant
2020 has been a year like no other. But it is a year we can all be proud of. What it has demonstrated is just how well the industry can come together to support one another when it’s needed the most. Advisers were busier than ever, at the forefront helping customers understand their options and looking to improve their situation, while also managing shifting credit appetites from lenders, delayed turnaround times and more people seeking solutions.
This was no easy feat and is a direct reflection of the passion and effort advisers put in to helping Kiwi families achieve their goals.
With our first full year in market in New Zealand, Pepper Money sought to offer choice, flexible lending solutions and real-life help for advisers and their clients.
At the peak of the pandemic, we sought to help advisers understand the financial relief options available to their customers quickly. That’s why we created the Pepper Money Financial Assistance hub from scratch – a comprehensive guide with all the information on financial relief assistance a customer may need to know, as well as a simple online form where customers experiencing hardship could apply for assistance.
Pepper was also proud to lead the industry in honouring all trail payments for customers affected by the pandemic, providing much needed certainty and confidence about an adviser’s own position, while continuing to help others. Pepper also worked to maintain our market leading 24-hour turnaround times and service levels, giving advisers the certainty they needed when working with an anxious customer.
With the year now coming to an end, we are determined to continue our strategy of helping real life Kiwi families and mortgage advisers succeed into 2021.
Our market research has told us that almost a quarter of borrowers have been turned down for a loan in the last two years and, almost 40% of those who were rejected were not made aware that there were alternative lenders. 1
_Source: Pepper Money Pulse Survey, June 2019
We think this highlights what we have always believed – which is just how important the role of a mortgage adviser is to our industry. Life events like divorce, long term illness or job loss are just a fact of life, and the way people earn income is changing too. These customers might simply need a near prime or specialist solution and without the adviser channel, everyday New Zealanders would have fewer options available to them.
We’ve found that borrowers who have applied for a loan through an adviser has increased over time, with 39% of customers applying through an adviser in the last 12 months. 2 Key reasons being, their ability to negotiate with lenders on their behalf, assisting them through the application process, to save them time and money, and to access a greater range of lenders.
We want to make sure we continue to help advisers offer this unique service to borrowers, which is why we’ve made education a cornerstone of our offering.
The Pepper Money team runs a regular series of product training sessions, PD Days and webinars throughout the year to help advisers understand the different solutions available to their customers. Our BDM team also share weekly “quick tips” to help advisers target and look out for new customers, including those that may be struggling to get assistance from mainstream lenders. Once advisers have an understanding of this, it’s easier for them to see that they can help more families succeed, and in turn improve their own businesses.
_Source: Pepper Money Pulse Survey, June 2019
Put simply – we want to make it easier for you and your customers. Pepper Money has put the technology into place to assist advisers in helping more Kiwi families and we are committed to supporting advisers in innovative and useful ways.
This includes our end to end digital experience. Pepper’s document engine can identify the different types of documents collected by mortgage advisers, assess what information is required, then automatically extract data from the application form, driver’s licence and passport to streamline what is traditionally a very lengthy process.
2020 also saw us launch version 2.0 of our Pepper Product Selector tool – an online tool that takes the guess work out of finding the most appropriate Pepper product for an adviser’s customer. Following feedback from early adopters, Pepper Money added the ability to calculate the customer’s borrowing power before returning an indicative offer tailored to the customer’s circumstances. In less than five minutes an adviser can now:
• calculate the customer’s indicative borrowing power upfront
• check the customer’s credit history – with no impact to their credit score
• have an indicative offer for a Pepper Money loan solution – with the product, rate, fees and repayment amount outlined.
The tool can be particularly useful where a customer’s circumstances do not typically fit the banks' criteria and they are searching for an alternative solution.
With these achievements in mind and knowing how resilient and unified our industry is, we’re finishing 2020 excited about the opportunities for the year ahead. We have found that advisers and customers were more open to alternative lending options this year, which bodes especially well for 2021. That’s why we are thrilled to be launching our Pepper Referral Marketing toolkit in the new year.
This toolkit has been developed in response to the number of New Zealand families needing alternative lending solutions and feedback from advisers expressing that there is a strong need for content and practical tools specifically targeting the non-conforming market. And, with our research confirming that more than 60% of new business comes from existing customer referrals, repeat customers and recommendations from professional networks, we’ll be sharing:
• a series of case studies advisers can customise with their branding and leave with their referral partners as a reminder of the type of customers they can assist
• a customer satisfaction survey template that helps advisers gather actionable feedback from their existing customers
• ready to use content on alternative lending to help brokers create their own online content or emails.
On behalf of everyone at Pepper Money, I’d like to thank you for the continued support you gave us, and your customers this year. Together, we’ve worked to help hundreds of families achieve their dream of home ownership and we consider this an incredible privilege. Advisers and borrowers are at the heart of everything we do, and we will continue to invest heavily into broker education, technology and real-life solutions in 2021. ✚
1 Source: Pepper Money Pulse Survey, June 2019
2 Source: RFi NZ Mortgage Council Survey, April 2020
