Westpac enables open banking for brokers

Westpac and NextGen have entered a partnership to give mortgage brokers and their customers access to open banking for home loan applications across all of the major bank’s brands (Westpac, St.George, Bank of Melbourne, and BankSA).

The partnership will see Westpac integrate open banking data through NextGen’s loan lodgement platform ApplyOnline.

Through open banking technology, home loan applicants can share financial information such as transaction histories or bank statements with their broker through the government-regulated Consumer Data Right (CDR) framework.

This allows mortgage brokers to receive instant and secure access to their client’s financial data from over 110 participating lenders and streamline the initial stages of the home loan application process.

Westpac joined the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) as the second major bank to enable open banking for mortgage brokers after CBA partnered with NextGen in September 2023.

Head of broker distribution at Westpac, Warren Shaw, commented on the new partnership: “Empowering our brokers and customers to auto populate a range of critical data into applications leads to less rework and therefore, improved decision times.

“Not only is it simpler and faster for customers to share their data in this way, but it saves broker’s valuable time so they can focus on building relationships and growing their business.”

Tony Carn, chief customer officer at NextGen, said the partnership is a “win-win” for both customers and brokers.

“The fact that Westpac is making Open Banking available in ApplyOnline demonstrates their commitment to using the latest technology available to deliver a superior experience for both brokers and customers,” Carn said.

While adoption of new technology has begun to pick up steam over the last 12 months, integration and the transition towards CDR have been slow.

Brokers are currently able to access data shared by a consumer under the CDR through the “trusted adviser” model.

However, the roll-out of use cases has been limited in the mortgage broker space, prompting the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) to urge lenders and aggregators to speed up the process.

Finsure was the first aggregator to turn on open banking for its brokers in January 2023 after partnering with NextGen and open banking provider Frollo, launching its Financial Passport to its broker network.

[RELATED: MFAA calls on industry to adopt CDR faster]

Written by Adrian Suljanovic

Last Updated: 18 April 2024

Published: 19 April 2024