The lending landscape for banks, lenders, and brokers are constantly evolving, with customer expectation is driving change. We chatted to Adam Grocke, Founder & CEO of Sherlok, whose mission is to build Australia’s #1 AI platform to help mortgage brokers retain and refinance existing clients.  More recently, Sherlok also won the 'BEST HOME LOAN INNOVATION' award that was sponsored by Sandstone Technology, at the 6th Annual FinTech Awards 2021. The award recognised Sherlok for their innovation and use of AI to predict and respond to customer behavior, enabling faster home loan processing and integrating with other exciting fintechs. Adam shares his insights into how technology innovation can re-imagine the lending experience...

Q1.How do you think lenders could improve the employee and customer experience for loan applications?

(a). Employee and Customer experience are both very different and sometimes conflicting priorities. In today’s world, both are driven by 3 key things but executed very differently.

i. 1. Convenience
ii. 2. Simplicity
iii. 3. Platform and process expectations

(b). Customers expect to submit a loan application from anywhere with minimal data entry and are happy to consent to data collection across a wide range of platforms if they trust the provider/lender/broker. They also now expect platforms/lenders/brokers to be able to make smart decisions with the data provided and use this data to gain a detailed understanding of the customer's financial position. It's these expectations that customers expect to get answers quicker. I believe the first key area to improve is limiting the data that needs to be collected to make a decision. Break it down to the must-have and nice to have data. Only ask for the minimum required to make the decision. Today’s application process captures more data than ever before but the speed to settlement has not vastly improved which tells me that the lenders are a little too excited about collecting more data for no real benefit for the customer. The second key area to improve is to build earlier qualifying gates before the customers provide the next batch of data or all their data. Fewer deals will make it through the initial gates however you’ll see an increase in conversions of application submission to approval and faster approval times.

(c). For the employee, it is all about presenting then with that they need to know and what they need to do. Having only an application presented to them that needs manual assessment along with the key area that needs to be investigated would improve the employee experience.

Q2. How can AI&ML technology in banking benefit customers?

Predictive recommendations that match products or services to the customers' behaviors or habits. Simpler credit decisions and faster approvals across all banking products.

Q3.What’s your definition of a data-led organisation today?

An organisation whose vision, strategy, and most importantly execution all align to extracting and adding value to data to drive better customer outcomes.

Q4.What technology or innovation do you see as a game-changer for banks and lenders?

(a). Specifically, focusing on home loans we see Single Click Refinancing being the game-changer for the whole industry. Someone having the ability to instantly shift their mortgage to a more competitive provider fundamentally changes the lending industry and how the banks are structured to generate margins. 

(b). Speaking more broadly, the biggest game-changer will be the ability for any brand or business to offer banking products or services to their customers. This results in an extra degree of separation between the customer and banks. Customers will start to buy more (banking products and services) from the brands they love and banking will become a back end commoditized service offering to platforms and brands.

Q5.What's the best piece of advice someone has given you for your career?

With each step forward the right path becomes clearer.