New lending service rolled out for brokers

According to Tic:Toc, its new service seeks to address pain points associated with compliance with responsible lending obligations under the National Credit Act by enabling users to gain a deeper insight into a borrower’s income and expenses in a more timely manner.

“What it does, in a nutshell, is enable a customer to either have their financial position formulated through the use of the tool by a broker or used to validate a financial position by either a broker or a lender,” Tic:Toc co-founder and CEO Anthony Baum told The Adviser.

The SaaS product uses “Explainable Artificial Intelligence” (XAI) models to better capture customer data and automate the underwriting processes, while also enabling users to interact, review and override decisions made by the algorithm.  

The fintech claimed that its customer-facing home-lending businesses, which has already adopted the platform, has experienced an 85 per cent assessment efficiency improvement.

It can reportedly provide customers with a loan contract less than an hour after submission and with as little as 12 minutes of human involvement.

“XAI Validate dramatically reduces the time and cost of delivering a home loan, which means customers can access cheaper home loans with faster turnaround times,” Mr Baum added.

Mr Baum specifically noted the benefits of the new service for the third-party channel, stating that it would assist brokers in accurately identifying their client’s financial position.

“A broker is able to pick up the tool, establish a financial position, correct any errors in the data with a customer, and [refine] predicted customer expenditure based on a conversation with the customer,” he said.  

“A lender can pick up that output and use it in their assessment process without rework.”

The fintech CEO added that the platform would build on the current processes employed by brokers using aggregation technologies to complete a statement of financial position.

“The challenge for brokers is that those statements are relatively static and they provide a format in terms of categorisation, but what they don’t do is enable the broker to actually interact or correct that data and actually to expediently ensure that the customer’s financial position is accurately represented in that data set,” he added.

“Basically, [XAI Validate] enables the broker to do that and land on a financial position that the customer and the broker can utilise as the position that is put forward to the lender.”

According to Mr Baum, the new service could also help improve credit quality, with the chief executive revealing that the fintech does not have loans more than 30 days in arrears across its $600-million portfolio.

“Our software will also help lenders minimise credit risk while maximising growth, enabling leaner and scalable operations,” he said.

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank signed a white-label agreement with Tic:Toc in 2019, becoming the first lender to offer Tic:Toc technology under its own brand.  

Mr Baum revealed that Tic:Toc is currently in negotiations with interested parties looking to opt in to the platform, with the fintech to make an announcement “relatively soon” with respect to a major reseller agreement with a “large industry player”. 

[Related: CBA-owned fintech unveils small-business app]