When Melissa Christy (pictured below) joined AMP Bank three and a half years ago, she immediately saw the need for something new.
"When I arrived, I had a spreadsheet full of items that BDMs sent to me. They had all these issues, and I needed you to fix them," AMP's head of lending origination told a room full of brokers and lenders in Sydney Wednesday. "And one by one, working through the issues with the process, or the system, and trying to solve them, and doing it with our current platform, [I realized] it needed an overhaul."
Given that more than 95% of AMP’s home loans are written through brokers, it was clear the bank needed to deliver a platform tailored to their needs. One that made the process easier, faster and more intuitive.
Fast forward to today, and AMP has launched the new AMP Bank Broker Platform, a major step forward in transforming the loan application experience in Australia. The platform is designed to be faster, reduce repetitive processes and provide a consistent, seamless journey for brokers and customers alike.
"Faster decisions is definitely what we're all about," Christy told Australian Broker. "The key benefit is that this is going to give brokers a much faster approval. That's why we've designed this whole experience."
(Melissa Christy, AMP's head of lending origination, gives a presentation in Sydney on AMP's new broker platform.)
"The broker channel is really important to us," said Paul Herbert (pictured at top), head of lending and everyday banking distribution at AMP. We really want to try to do things differently. We're not going to try to be like everybody else. Our product, our policies and our processes are all designed around that idea."
Accelerated digital verification: Brokers can complete verification of income, expenses, identity (via VOI software), and property information prior to submitting the application.
"We connect directly to payroll providers for PAYG applicants and all that data is input directly," Christy said. "We then run a calculation and present to you on screen what the digital income is. And you can see declared and digital income together side by side, and you can run serviceability on both. You can also choose which way you want to submit.
"We will also be able to scan a pay slip and take the data off pay slips, then run the calculation and show the broker that digital income that we verified on screen next to the declaration," she continued. "With that pay slip solution, we also run fraud checks at the same time. We can also verify [rental income] pre-submission."
Decisions within minutes: Credit and policy assessments occur instantly before submission, with any issues automatically highlighted for brokers.
Simplified application workflow: Information flows directly from the CRM into the platform, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry and reducing manual work, saving brokers valuable time.
"It is digital, but being digital means that we can improve you quicker," Christy said.
Faster approvals and settlements: Approvals can be granted within minutes, supported by features like 90-second docs. Once approved, loan documents are immediately issued to both brokers and customers.
"We need to get a customer off the market; we want to get to settlement quickly," Christy said. "We've also overhauled that process by partnering with Sydney-based [legal firm] MSA National."
In addition, Christy said AMP is offering customized two-minute personal videos to borrowers — one that goes out with the docs and one that goes out with the settlement — that gives borrowers crucial information, such as what they need to know moving forward and what's next in the process. It also gives them an opportunity to verify all information is correct.
Sam Makhoul, founder, managing director, and chief executive officer of MSA, said the shift toward video communication is a positive one because, as he put it, "nobody likes to read anymore."
"Engagement with text is about 15%," Makhoul said. "That means only about 15% of people read the text. But with videos, engagement is over 80%. And customers are signing documents faster."
(Michael Christofides, AMP Bank's director of lending and everyday banking, speaks at AMP's new broker platform launch.)
The new platform was designed in partnership with Simpology, Fortiro, Equifax and Cotality, the company formerly known as CoreLogic, and is built on Simpology’s advanced Loanapp Version 2 software.
The platform has been in pilot testing since its soft launch in May. To date, over 3,000 brokers and one aggregator are already using it. The official launch is set for 14 August, with a nationwide rollout planned across Australia.
"When we look at what the tech that is out there today, it is so much better than what was there six or seven years ago," Christy said. "Tech has moved on. The ability to actually verify things up front before submission is able to be achieved today. We've also now got a platform that means that we can scale and grow and change as new technology emerges. So we're in a great position to really meet yours and your customers' needs."
Herbert added: "The key for us is, how do we get closer and closer and closer to an environment where we rely more on what the brokers do? And less and less about what's in the middle?"
