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Non-major lender Bankwest has rolled out a pricing tool on its Home Lending Portal, which provides "real-time responses" to mortgage rate requests.
The tool, which has been rolled out across Bankwest’s broker network via its Home Lending Portal, has been designed to provide brokers with a simple, easy-to-use interface.
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It provides brokers with real-time decisions on discretionary rates for prospective home buyers. It also allows pre-population with relevant customer data, a shortlist of applications (relevant to the pricing request) and associated application status updates.
The bank has said that the new features have led to a reduction in manual data entry, dramatically improved response times and increased process transparency for brokers.
Bankwest general manager – broker sales Stewart Saunders commented: “We were keen to get this tool right the first time and deliver something which continues to evolve and improve brokers’ experience of Bankwest.
“We held focus groups and did broker site visits — everything we could do to try to understand what they wanted and how we could help.”
Decisions on typical acquisition requests are automated (thanks to “a structured approach to pricing approvals”), while more complex decisions are escalated to a Bankwest business development manager (BDM), Mr Saunders explained, adding that this “human point of reference” was particularly welcomed by brokers.
He continued: “Aside from the positive feedback we’ve received, we’re very pleased with the speed with which we have been able to roll this out to the broker community. It’s been about five months from first inception, through a couple of iterations to full deployment.”
The Home Lending Portal was first rolled out to all Bankwest brokers in July, following the launch of the Home Loan Application Tracker.
Innovative technology solutions such as these have been particularly welcomed by brokers of late, gaining Bankwest the top spot in Momentum Intelligence's Third-Party Lending Report: Non-Major Banks 2017.
Bankwest’s general manager – customer transformation, Jarod Avila, said that the new portal reflects the importance Bankwest places on its relationship with its broker partners.
“At Bankwest, our brokers are important to us, so we’re continuing to invest in them. We’re on a journey to create a world-class home loan experience, making it simpler and easier to support them in growing their business.
“The Home Lending Portal, the Application Tracker and now this pricing tool have all been designed with their needs and goals in mind, as we continuously evolve and improve our broker offering.”
[Related: Banking on Bankwest]
