Digital bank ubank is ramping up distribution through the almost 11,000 brokers it has accredited, says head of broker distribution George Srbinovski.
The bank also wants to win brokers over with a loan process supported by innovative digital tools, experiences and a faster speed to approval.
Throughout its launch as neobank 86 400 in 2019 and subsequent acquisition by NAB and rebranding to ubank in 2021, ubank has been primarily focused on growing its distribution network by signing aggregator partners and working with them to get mortgage brokers accredited.
Srbinovski (pictured above) said ubank’s focus had shifted towards asking “how do we get more of those 11,000 brokers to use us”, with the bank’s BDM team now on the ground talking with its broker network “about what ubank has to offer and our new way of working”.
ubank held its first ever BrokerFest in Sydney in March as part of its growing distribution push, where it outlined its strategy for the third-party broker market, brought in speakers and tech partners to support broker business building and provided insights into the future of lending.
“Brokers are a major part of ubank’s ongoing distribution strategy,” Srbinovski said. “We’re investing heavily into brokers to help them build their businesses and get comfortable with digital and the digital offering that ubank has available to the broker channel.”
Going digital to accelerate speed-to-approval
ubank was the first lender to bring digital income and expense verification tools into the channel using services such as bankstatements.com.au. The bank has since expanded where it can use digital verification, including the broker’s declaration for expenses and it continues to evolve its offering.
“Bringing digital in enables our time to unconditional approval to reduce,” Srbinovski said. “It’s one thing to pick up a file really quickly, but it’s another thing to make a decision on that file really quickly as well. That is a big focus for our operations team, to be best-in-class for time to unconditional approval.”
ubank is targeting PAYG home loan customers up to 85% LVR, with a focus on using its “unique, original process” to offer loans digitally to these customers as quickly as possible. “We are good for everyone as long as they are comfortable using a smartphone,” Srbinovski said.
At BrokerFest, ubank showcased key vendors in ubank’s digital ecosystem, which include digital loan origination platform Simpology, digital identity verification provider OCRLabs, Docusign, illion, mortgage processing and admin provider FMS and loan serviceability checker Quickli.
“We were first in the broker channel to use providers like bankstatements.com to digitally verify income, and that is very different to your traditional two pay slips and a letter of employment type of lender – we have a paperless home loan application and we’re using digital means to do that,” Srbinovski said.
He said the entire end-to-end process was now paperless, including settlements, as long as the broker’s home loan customer lived in a state which had enabled digital signatures.
“We have also focused on the app itself. The insights our app provides our customers are quite unique in the marketplace. In a tap-and-go type of society we notify our customers of their upcoming subscriptions or their upcoming bills with the use of data we receive from their accounts.
“They also have connected accounts so that they can get a full view of their accounts in the one place. So not only have we focused on the origination process, but we have also focused on every single day of our customers’ use of the product as well.”
Brokers embracing a digital home loan future
Srbinovski said brokers had embraced ubank’s digital offering. “The goodwill we have generated in the broker channel is absolutely phenomenal. Brokers from all walks of life want to learn our process and systems and we have BDMs out on the road helping them grow through education.”
BrokerFest is due to come to Melbourne in the next few months. Srbinovski said in the future ubank aimed to provide digital tools to brokers so would be able shorten the time it took to provide a PAYG application and for the lender to process it.
“If I start thinking through where I want to take this journey it’s around how quickly can a broker submit a PAYG application to ubank, so that they can spend more quality time with their customers talking about what their requirements and objectives are and their future needs analysis,” Srbinovski said.
“That is what I get excited about – how quickly can we make that origination process so they can spend more quality time building their business or spending it with their customer.”
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