AFG Now has arrived in Sydney.
More than 400 mortgage industry professionals — including brokers, lenders, aggregators and service providers — flocked to the ICC Sydney on Thursday for the final leg of Australian Finance Group's roadshow, dubbed "AFG Now."
The mortgage and finance broking aggregator's combined five-city tour, which made stops in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, brought together more than 1,500 brokers as they navigate fast-moving market dynamics, such as higher interest rates, cost-of-living pressures, housing shortages, looming tax changes and global uncertainty, and learn to adapt to the new norm of constant change.
"The importance of attending this is around being able to — in a short, sharp period of time — get the key things that you need to know, not only from an industry regulatory compliance perspective, but also, what are the tools and services that can actually help you to take into your business, to help you continue to build a better business. What is happening that you can take back to your business tomorrow?" AFG's General Manager Aggregation Christa Malkin told Australian Broker.
Sydney's agenda featured opening remarks by Haley Bellamy, state manager of New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory; insights on technology from Russell Graham, head of product and design at AFG; Malkin talking business strategy; and Cotality's Head of Research Gerard Burg delivering market updates; while more than 70 exhibitors and special guest Australian basketball player and Paralympics Tristan Knowles rounded out the program.
Malkin added that AFG Now is centered on the "here and now," versus AFG Next, which will take place this November in Melbourne, and is forward-looking, focusing on the future and how to continue evolving in the industry.
In the current market, AFG is firing on all cylinders. Lodgements are up 22.5%, year-over-year, with AFG brokers writing one in nine residential home loans across Australia.
Bellamy also revealed a new recognition program called the AFG Hall of Fame, which "will recognise members who have demonstrated long-standing continuous membership with AFG, sustained excellence in serving their customers and leadership within the broker community."
To qualify, members need at least 15 years of continuous membership with AFG, be a current member, have a consistent record of compliance and professionalism with no outstanding risk or lender accreditation matters, and "represent AFG positively with lenders in the broader community," Bellamy explained.
Meanwhile, AFG has invested more than $1 million in artificial intelligence, including updates to the firm's BrokerEngine Plus platform.
AI is already having an impact on businesses and the ways brokers are already putting the technology to work.
Russell Graham, head of product and design at AFG, gives a presentation during AFG Now in Sydney
"We're seeing AI used for meeting notes, transcription, speeding up data entry, drafting client emails, summarizing, drafting, marketing; the sort of day-to-day use cases," Graham said.
"From a support side, we use AI now to answer your queries quicker, or direct you to a human if need be," he continued. "And we can also answer your policy questions for AFG home loan products quicker using our assist AI tool."
AFG is currently trialing lender and deal insights on the platform, as well as looking at AI document recognition and adding company, trusts and self-managed super fund (SMSF) deals to the BrokerEngine platform in the next year.
"There's lots of power in BrokerEngine Plus," he said. "There's lots of ways you can simplify, improve. But it all comes back to mindset.
"You're all super busy; you're spending all your time with clients. There's lots to do," Graham explained. "But having a curious mindset and whenever something happens multiple times, thinking, is there a better way? Can I set up the process [better]? How do you be collaborative with your teams and make sure that [your ideas] aren't just in your head, but dispersed into the team? And how do you have that mindset of continuous improvement so that the BrokerEngine is not set-and-forget?; [instead] it's a work in progress where you're improving your experience time and time again."
Roughly 70 exhibitors attended the AFG Now roadshow in Sydney.
Malkin (pictured above) added that technology is a powerful tool. But relationships and the human experience will also continue to impact broker's businesses in a sort of hybrid model.
"AI plus people is where the magic happens," the GM said. "There's no doubt that AI will help brokers as far as productivity. There's still a lot of administrative parts to doing a mortgage. And as AI continues to evolve that will help to remove some of that friction from both broker and [the] account perspective.
"We should see that as a really positive thing that helps brokers to focus better on what they do best, which is supporting customers, building that rapport and that trusted advisor relationship and helping customers with their lending strategy and working with them on their goals and what they want to achieve in future," Malkin continued. "The magic is really in those brokerages that are going to be able to ingest AI into their process to help them to be more productive and to remove some of that customer friction.
"But we can't lose sight of the fact that these are still huge decisions and huge transactions and customers still love that trusted advisor relationship and that person that can help to guide them on the right journey," she added.
