Australian brokerage Home Loan Experts has rebranded its outsourcing division in a bid to attract more mortgage brokers to its service suite.
The firm, formerly known as HLE Nepal, is a brokering outsourcing consultancy based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Founded in July 2012 with Home Loan Experts as its primary outsourcing partner, it now collaborates with more than 40 outsourcing partners under the name Alaya.
With operating costs affecting many brokerages amid a cost-of-living crisis in Australia, Bhisan Raj (pictured above left), Home Loan Experts general manager of broking, said Alaya could provide that experience to help other broker firms to “reach sustainable growth” of their business at a fraction of the price.
“At Home Loan Experts, we started with outsourcing most parts of human resources, accounts, loan processing, and marketing,” Raj said. “It then has expanded to everything that we do to attract a customer to post settlement including any complaints or compliance-related stuff that come through.”
“This has immensely helped us to grow our business and use the same methodology to help other top broker firms in Australia.”
What outsourcing does and doesn’t cover
While outsourcing can sometimes result in a lack of control, Alaya’s outsourced mortgage broker support doesn’t change the home loan approval process.
Brokers will still complete upfront assessments and collect documents to verify assets, liabilities and overall eligibility for a home loan as well as recommend products that best suits their client’s needs and goals.
Instead, the benefits come in after the assessment process.
Once completed, a support team member takes charge of gathering any missing client documents, arranging an upfront property valuation, and preparing the mortgage application for submission.
The broker’s involvement is only required to review the application before submission. Afterward, all customer communication is handled by the outsourcing team.
Raj said that this had made Alaya “a sustainable way to grow” the business within Home Loan Experts and he urged others brokers to consider the benefits.
“It does a lot of trials and experiments and then cuts off the unsuccessful ones immediately or scales up the successful ones,” he said.
“This approach has helped Alaya form a post-settlement team and serve the customers after the settlement, have a great pool of credit analysts to help brokers submit deals, and use the success of the broking side to help other broker firms in Australia succeed through outsourcing.”
While outsourcing to Alaya has helped brokerages in several processes, Shreya Shrestha, general manager of outsourcing in Nepal, said it had also helped mortgage brokerages form a “dedicated and skilled” workforce.
Shrestha said Alaya had helped Home Loan Experts and other brokerages to identify senior leaders for their business, with Raj and even herself coming through this process.
“Especially in an era when finding and retaining committed employees is challenging, Alaya has emerged as a valuable solution for many mortgage broking companies seeking dependable, long-term team members,” Shrestha said.
Why Nepal?
With countries like India, the Philippines, and Fiji being outsourcing hotspots for Australian brokerages, a company in Nepal might seem a little left of field.
Raj said the venture began when Home Loan Experts founder Otto Dargan went on the Everest base camp trek along with his friends.
“He found some wonderful and smart local people. The business venture was prompted because the growing business in Australia needed a profitable and sustainable way to expand the team to serve increasing customers and demand,” Raj said.
“There are great talents in Nepal and it’s an untapped market when it comes to outsourcing.”
Another key reason is cost, which varies based on the country and required skills. For instance, while an Australian support team member costs AUD $74,800 per year, it would be approximately $34,800 in Nepal due to currency strength, according to HLE.
“The costs of outsourcing with Alaya can be even lower, depending on the resources you need to run your business,” Raj said.
Raj sympathised with brokerages that might be apprehensive about using outsourcing services.
“No doubt this is a journey and there are challenges to overcome. There will be differences in culture, thinking, timing, and so on,” Raj said.
“However, these are the things to embrace and focus on strengths that they can bring to your business. Alaya has gone through the challenges and mitigated the way to move forward smoothly.”
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