At its annual ‘Innovation Update’ presentation,
NextGen.Net announced a remarkable 100% growth trajectory in
ApplyOnline application numbers over the past five years.
Applications processed through
ApplyOnline this year alone total over 550,000, with over 50 lenders available on the platform.
ApplyOnline now supports approximately 96% of brokers nationwide, and its associated tool,
Supporting Docs, is being hailed as the expected industry standard.
“Our primary objective is empowerment at the point of sale [POS]; and our roadmap is designed to continue to deliver the most effective and efficient ways to achieve that goal,” NextGen.Net sales director Tony Carn said.
Breaking down the NextGen.Net roadmap to POS empowerment, Carn highlights the four key routes:
Capability: ApplyOnline tools and features
Quality: a framework that focuses on the integration and validation of data, and the surety that information is correct
Compliance: tools to help brokers and lenders be compliant with regulatory requirements
Best possible customer service: which speaks for itself
A pivotal aspect of NextGen.Net’s success is its value proposition and attention to detail in smart solutions.
“In 2016 we’ll continue to take big leaps forward with further enhancements to our
Supporting Documents service.”
Part of the evolution of
ApplyOnline in 2016 will be the enabling of e-document delivery, which is the ability for lenders to send letters of offer and mortgage documents to the broker via the
ApplyOnline platform.
Another exciting part of the innovation roadmap is the new
ApplyOnline App, which allows brokers to track and manage their applications using their mobile devices.
“It will be great for brokers because it gives a consolidated pipeline view of all loans, to all lenders, in one spot on a mobile device. Plus it will take the pressure off lenders by reducing the number of enquiries they receive regarding loan status.”
“The
ApplyOnline App will also allow the brokers to manage ‘push notifications’ settings. So brokers can be notified of a change in status to a loan with detailed notes, regardless of where they are.”
Many brokers spend a lot of time on the road, so providing a clean, direct and mobile feed of real-time status updates across all
ApplyOnline lenders is a really powerful tool,” Carn explained.
Also launching in 2016 will be a new UI (user interface) for
ApplyOnline Supporting Docs, which will streamline the application process and deliver a more high-tech experience.
“We’ve completed a refresh of the UX (user experience) for
ApplyOnline Supporting Docs. It’s going to be cleaner, easier and highly intuitive,” Carn said.
“We’re also introducing what we call
Smart Docs, which utilise machine-learning tools that read, identify and suggest what the document is. This will really help make brokers’ life easier.”
Referring to it as ‘artificial intelligence’, Carn explained that the UI has built up the knowledge of what documents should look like so it can determine the accuracy of documents that are fed into it.
“It’s got the smarts built into it,” he says.
This year saw NextGen.Net further their active role in the lending community by holding its second Technology Summit. The concept is to establish an open forum with SMEs from broker groups to discuss current and upcoming industry challenges, and proposed solutions.
“We want to understand grassroots issues from the viewpoint of the broker and aggregator, and devise our innovation roadmap accordingly,” said Carn.
“We’ve also invested significantly in training over the last 12 months. We have taken on board two training managers, and the feedback from the market, in terms of us taking responsibility for ensuring our users can maximise the technology, has been extremely positive.
“Judging by what we’ve got on the drawing board, 2016 is set to deliver even smarter and more innovative solutions.”
