Bankwest has added a pricing tool to its broker-focused Home Lending Portal, allowing brokers to receive a real time response when they request a personalised home loan rate for a client.
The tool, which has been rolled out across Bankwest’s broker network, has been designed with brokers’ ease of use at its heart, resulting in a visually appealing and simple to use interface.
Bankwest General Manager Broker Sales Stewart Saunders says that the feedback from brokers has been very gratifying.
“We were keen to get this tool right first time and deliver something which continues to evolve and improve brokers’ experience of Bankwest.”
“We held focus groups and did broker site visits – everything we could do to try to understand what they wanted and how we could help,” he added.
The Home Loan Portal was previously rolled out to all Bankwest brokers in July, following the launch of the home loan application tracker – part of a broader Bankwest project to provide a simple, world class application experience for their brokers.
The new pricing tool provides brokers with real time decisions on discretionary rates for prospective home buyers. Through a structured approach to pricing approvals, decisions on typical acquisition requests will be automated, with more complicated decisions being escalated for a personal interaction with a Bankwest Business Development Managers.
“That was something the brokers told us they really appreciated – the fact that there’s also a human point of reference, so we made sure we took this into consideration,” added Mr Saunders.
Linked to the existing portal, the pricing tool:
- allows pre-population with relevant customer data
- provides a shortlist of applications, allowing convenient association with a pricing request
- shows the broker the associated application status (thereby allowing them to identify when contracts have already been issued and adjustments are therefore required).
These features have led to a reduction in manual data entry, dramatically improved response times and increased process transparency for brokers.
“Aside from the positive feedback we’ve received, we’re very pleased with the speed with which we have been able to roll this out to the broker community. It’s been about five months from first inception, through a couple of iterations to full deployment now,” Mr Saunders added.
Bankwest General Manager Customer Transformation Jarod Avila said the new portal reflects the importance Bankwest places on its relationship with its broker partners.
“At Bankwest, our brokers are important to us so we’re continuing to invest in them. We’re on a journey to create a world class home loan experience; making it simpler and easier to support them in growing their business.”
“The Home Lending Portal, the Application Tracker and now this Pricing Tool have all been designed with their needs and goals in mind, as we continuously evolve and improve our broker offering.”