Steve Weston, former CEO of mortgages at Barclays Bank in the UK, has joined the advisory board of simplyaskit, a consumer financial startup which links consumers and financial experts through a digital platform.
Prior to heading up mortgages and lending at Barclay Bank in 2012, Weston was the general manager of broker platforms for
NAB. He returned to Australia in January 2016 and used his expertise to advise a number of businesses both here in Australia and internationally.
Ryan said he was thrilled to have a senior executive and industry leader like Weston join the firm's advisory board.
“Consumers want experts to be genuine, reliable and trustworthy. Having someone with Steve’s experience and integrity on board, should give consumers confidence that they will have access to the right advice and expertise.”
Simplyaskit is an open community exchange which lets consumers to ask questions and find advice across a number of sectors including home loans, real estate and finance.
“It is a Q&A exchange where consumers can ask questions at their convenience, find the right advice, access the best expertise and interact with the experts answering their questions,” Ryan told
Australian Broker.
The platform currently has 400 experts on its panel including a bit over 300 mortgage and finance brokers.
Bringing in new business
As simplyaskit is open platform, all questions and answers are available to the public, Ryan said. This means that anyone can read over the questions posted and, if they see an expert they like, get in touch.
“As it is an open community forum, consumers can view all the questions and answers, they can see who is answering questions, their level of expertise and advice. They can access their profiles and view all their answers and any blogs or videos they’ve posted. They can even start following them which allows the experts to communicate content directly to their followers.
“If they feel they’d like further assistance from the expert, they can click the Contact Me button which generates new business for the industry exper
t.”
In this way, brokers can elevate themselves and their advice digitally by engaging and interacting with consumers in a modern marketplace, he said.
Experience in the spotlight
Because the platform is open to anyone, experts can respond to answers left by others on each question. In this way, those who are more experienced can comment on possible mistakes or oversights made by those newer to the industry.
“All the information is 100% transparent so it means if some answers are deemed light on information, then industry experts can correct the information which is a big win for consumers because they are getting the right advice and gaining access to the best expertise,” Ryan said.
“We have made it far more engaging in that experts have a choice in how they can answer questions. They can use the traditional method of writing the answer or they can use the audio and video tools within the app itself. It is a great resource for industry experts to engage, elevate their profile and expertise on what is an open community platform – it isn’t gated like other social mediums.”
This can make the platform a learning experience for brokers as they gain advice from those more with more expertise in the field, Ryan said.
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