Login
ISCOVER
Asset finance services partner Platform Consolidated Group has rebranded to Platform Finance following the appointment of a new executive leadership team and under a new growth strategy.
Platform Finance was chosen as the new name of the umbrella group for the eight companies underneath the brand (including Melbourne Finance, Mildura Finance, Platinum Direct Finance and beCarWise) to be “more representative of what the group does”, the group’s new chief executive officer, Brad Crinion, told The Adviser.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
The new brand will take effect for the aggregation and broker side of the business. The direct/retail businesses under the PCG banner will join the Platform Finance brand as part of phase two.
Mr Crinion, who joined the company in March and has been CEO since June 2018, told The Adviser that the rebrand coincided with a “new strategic approach” for the group, among leadership changes.
New members of the senior team include Damian Mantini, director of aggregation and strategic partnerships; and Richard Kew, national sales director.
Mike Nicholls (former CEO and new chairman of the board) and Peter Schroeder will remain as executive directors, with the leadership team also supported by Chris Penney, chief operations officer; and Caroline Grima, general manager.
“Our new team ensures we have the right people at the top, so we can continue our growth trajectory and keep investing where it counts,” Mr Crinion commented.
“With our new strategic direction and senior leadership team onboard, it was timely to develop and launch a new brand,” Mr Crinion said.
“The change to Platform Finance gives us the opportunity to unite under one new name, strengthening our already excellent offering as Australia’s leading asset finance services partner. We are the same trusted partner, just with a new look and feel,” he said.
New strategy
Mr Crinion told The Adviser that it was seeking to move away from being branded as an aggregator, instead aiming to become a “business partner to brokers and offer a full service model”.
“What we want to do is work a lot closer with our brokers and provide a higher level of service than what they knew was available to them in the past,” he said, adding that brokers will “absolutely continue to be a key channel for Platform Finance”.
The group is in the final stages of developing Platform Connect, its new cloud-based system that manages leads, finance applications and settled customer contracts. Expected to launch in the early new year, the group said that the system will “improve the efficiency and speed of lodging applications”.
The Platform Finance CEO said that this would fall into the group’s new OneCall Processing Team, which aims to put brokers in direct connection with the person best suited to process that deal.
“These improvements in efficiencies will allow us to explore expansion opportunities into new business areas, as well as new regions that we previously have not operated in,” he said.
In conclusion, the CEO said: “Platform has exceeded $1 billion in asset finance annually, and 2019 is shaping up to be another very exciting year for the group.
“We have a key focus on enhancing our service offering to provide greater support to our broker network while improving processes to realise great efficiencies in order to facilitate future strategic alliances.”
[Related: Grow your business with asset finance aggregator Platform Consolidated Group]
