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The founder of Unbiased Mortgage Advisers has responded to criticism levelled at the young fintech, commenting that the need for credit and feature matching algorithms is greater than ever.
The Adviser recently ran a piece about Unbiased Mortgage Advisers, a service that says it is “Australia’s first truly independent and unbiased mortgage service”, saving its customers an average of $14,344 on their mortgages over five years.
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The story generated a considerable response, with a total of 47 comments from a range of mortgage professionals.
Speaking to The Adviser, founder Miki Lee has responded to the criticisms of platform, highlighting that its credit and feature matching algorithms provide customers with an advanced view of which products match their situation.
“When it comes to the adviser recommendations, the platform automates an increasingly complex task of identifying what products match, so instead of having to rely on your memory where you just remember two or three lenders really well or sieve through tonnes of products manually, the system does that for us, and that's really becoming increasingly important as lenders move towards rate-for-risk scenarios,” Ms Lee said.
“What that means is that nowadays the same loan and loan amount with a slightly different borrower circumstance will get a different rate and deal even though their loan amount is the same, because some other aspect in their borrowing characteristic and profile is different,” Ms Lee explained.
“So it can be the same product, same loan amount, but two different borrower scenarios, two different pricings. That's going to make the job of an adviser who is not backed up with really advanced technology which deals with that increasing complexity a lot harder,” she said.
Ms Lee explained that Unbiased’s range is unrestricted, which is a key aspect of how the platform works.
“Any lender and any broker can see and bid for any one of our borrowers on our mortgage competition platform, and they will appear apple for apple with the actual panel lenders available through Unbiased itself,” she said.
In a reply to one of the comments in the original story, Ms Lee elaborated on how the platform works:
“Unbiased Mortgage Advisers, fee- and obligation-free:
1. Conducts borrower discovery (fact find);
2. Creates a recommended structure;
3. Launches an independent, anonymous mortgage contest;
4. Maps the discovery against all bids and all matching panel lender products for match;
5. Prices all matching bids and products which are considered 'not unsuitable';
6. Delivers the all results with advanced comparison tools to the borrower; and
7. Provides dedicated adviser for support.
We do this work for the borrower without charge or obligation to enable them to get an honest and genuine feel for how we differ and what we offer.”
Ms Lee explained to The Adviser that having worked as a mortgage broker many years ago, she created Unbiased after observing the challenges facing brokers and the complexity of the marketplace, which alerted her to the strong need for such a platform.
[Related: 'Strip away commissions' to unlock $1.3b for borrowers, says broker]
