With transparency a major focus by government and regulators, loan platforms such as
NextGen.Net’s ApplyOnline have had to step up and produce better processes to help brokers, aggregators and lenders stay compliant amidst stricter conditions.
This means proactively producing quality data and results at the point of sale rather than in hindsight, sales director of NextGen.Net, Tony Carn, told
Australian Broker.
“It’s about the quality of information that’s being provided.”
NextGen.Net has introduced software which aligns loan applications with a lender’s credit policy for an added level of transparency, he said.
“Another key area is alignment of a loan with the requirements of that lender, i.e. what information do they need to provide, what policy attributes it needs to have, but also what documentation and verification the borrower needs to provide to the broker and ultimately the lender.”
This provides transparency across multiple parties including the broker, broker head group, lenders and third parties such as mortgage insurers, lawyers or regulatory bodies.
“It’s critical that data is transparent and auditable and measurable by the licence holder,” Carn said. “And not only is it transparent but it’s transparent in real time.”
Lenders can use ApplyOnline to track applications as submitted by the broker including back channel messages, he added. This means lenders can see all data submitted rather than simply the data requested within their credit policies.
Regulatory bodies are the latest group to turn their eyes onto these types of lending platforms even calling on brokers for this added data, Carn said.
Of course, the need for transparency has to be balanced with confidentiality, security and privacy concerns for borrowers with NextGen.Net investing heavily in these areas, Carn added.
“Everybody in the world is vulnerable and no one is 100% to the risks that we face as an industry. It’s how we actually prepare and how we invest to protect ourselves and mitigate those risks as strongly as possible.”
Certain risks around privacy are “enormously overlooked” especially by those without direct responsibility for them, he warned. This includes aspects such as encryption of data as well as poor online habits such as accepting supporting documents via email.
“In the main though, we have a very robust and very leading edge infrastructure across the mortgage industry. We just need to be vigilant of new risks not creeping their way in.”
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