Smarter Mortgage Applications

It prides itself on tailoring lending and investing programs to customers who prefer streamlined documentation and processing and was the first company in Australia to develop an electronic mortgage application for use by financial brokers.

Since its inception in 1952, the La Trobe Financial Services Group has provided traditional and innovative financing programs that are a unique blend of simplified underwriting and loan structuring experience.

Mortgage application forms need to meets unique clients’ needs, from simple applications through to more complex and lengthier forms. As an added complication, forms are often submitted with missing information and some applications require more than one form.

As La Trobe Financial is currently building a new core technology platform, the SmartForm will initially be used as a marketing tool and have the ability to integrate with the new backend system in the future. Avoka solutions can enable solutions to fit in with both new and existing core systems and, this is adaptable over the long term.

Avoka built and implemented a customer-centric electronic “smart” form solution using Adobe LiveCycle ES. The SmartForm allows financial brokers to enter all the data electronically, save the form to their computer and print it for submission. The form also enables brokers to enter multiple applicant details, including guarantors and properties within the one application.

“We are very pleased with the result – Avoka delivered a timely and efficient business solution and we were able to benefit from their extensive knowledge and expertise with SmartForms.  We consider this an exciting new offering to our brokers and it gives us something new in a competitive marketplace.”  

Iain Pepper, Executive Head of Operations , La Trobe Financial Services Group

The solution also addressed the ongoing challenge of applications arriving with limited information.  In the past this meant La Trobe Financial needed to go back to clients and brokers for this information which created delays in the processing of the application.  With data validation on the SmartForm, the broker now handles this at the point of data collection.

The SmartForm was developed using Adobe LiveCycle software and leverages the use of the free ubiquitous Adobe Reader. It has the capability for:

• Multiple applicants
• Entering of multiple guarantors and properties
• Saving data
• Pre-population of the application

La Trobe Financial said that partnering with Avoka led to the project being delivered on time and efficiently.  As Australia’s leading provider of SmartForms, Avoka was able to leverage its expertise and experience to come up with creative ideas and suggestions on how to improve the form’s functionality, refining the solution to adapt to the client’s unique requirements.

• The introduction of the SmartForm has overcome the problematic applications due to issues such as illegible hand writing or incomplete information. It minimizes the reworking and follow-up needed to be undertaken by La Trobe
• Brokers’ time is saved because the SmartForm integrates numerous different types of applications into one single process
• Customer service is enhanced as brokers can pre-populate applications and the form can be expanded based for each individual clients’ requirements
• Provides an engaging online application for the business – encouraging customer interaction and, in the long run, loyalty.
• La Trobe are seen as a innovative and customer centric business.