Major bank
Westpac has today unveiled a new content portal aimed at improving the knowledge and skills of the bank’s 13,500 accredited brokers.
The bank has launched two portals – Ideas Hub for Westpac and Learning Lab for St George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne – which are designed to give brokers 24/7 access to information on products, processes, and pain points, as well as ideas from Australia’s top thinkers.
“We’ll have thought provoking articles, videos and more that hopefully allow brokers to look beyond their day-to-day transactions and help them grow and expand their business and how they deal with customers in the future,” Westpac general manager of third party distribution Tony MacRae told
Australian Broker.
The idea for the content hub was born out of a Westpac broker survey held last year that identified a few key themes around better access to learning and development in an innovative, digital manner.
“This aligned really well with what we’ve tried to do with our BDMs for some time now – moving past just satisfying transactional leads to helping brokers better understand and then grow their business.”
The timing of the portal is especially relevant with changes in today’s current broking environment spurring a need for additional tools and educational support for brokers, he added.
Content is chosen from direct broker feedback which will be continually sourced to evolve the articles and videos on the portal, MacRae said. These additional comments will be gathered from future surveys as well as directly through the portals themselves.
The portal stands out from other industry portals because it goes beyond simple loan policy and processing advice, he added.
“We wanted to provide thought provoking, really interesting ideas as well as putting thinkers who may appear once a year at aggregator conferences at the broker’s fingertips.”
“The access that we have to thinkers, industry leaders and consulting firms is unprecedented. We’re able to give brokers a portal to some of the best leaders who have been there and done that which the industry can provide.”
These individuals are chosen from a range of sources including Westpac’s financial education centre The Davidson Institute as well as those participating in the Westpac Scholars scholarship program and the Westpac Businesses of Tomorrow initiative which were launched on the bank’s 200th anniversary.
More types of content are planned with webinars and podcasts on the agenda in the future, he said. The specific areas of interest will be driven by broker needs.
Around 20 brokers have already trialled the bank’s new content portals over the past few weeks, MacRae said.
“The feedback from them has been very positive. Content-wise, it’s a good start and there were some interesting things around the process perspective. Also, just as pleasing, is that navigation has been found to be really simple and easy to use.”
James Thompson, lending specialist at Shadforth Financial Group, was one of the brokers who trialled the new hub. He spoke to
Australian Broker about his experience with the platform.
“The content that they’ve given us and the access that I’ve seen is fantastic. The key thing is that as a broker, you’ve got so much access to various different lenders and information that it can be a bit overwhelming. What Westpac’s set up is a great source of information directly for the broker.”
Thompson said that the portals were quite unique in the marketplace.
“It’s something that the banks and lending institutions haven’t really focused on before. They haven’t provided a platform for brokers to fully understand what the bank is offering in a really simple way. This makes it easy for us to then go and present to the client with a full understanding of what the bank’s offering is.”
He hoped that Westpac would expand their knowledge hubs to include updates around any offers that they have, such as rebates or special interest rates, so brokers could understand the bank’s proposition at that point in time.
“But in terms of the links that they’ve got there already, they’re really relevant to brokers in the industry to make sure they’re on top of all the key things included.”
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