|
LIXI Evening Series wrap-up
 One of the key issues to come out of the LIXI Industry Forum in 2007 was the lack of business discussion and understanding around the importance of standards in mortgage origination and ongoing management.
On 5 June 2008 in Melbourne, LIXI held its second Evening Series event of the year to discuss these key topics and facilitate networking among members and other industry stakeholders.
With the development of new product and commissions standards, the panel and attendees were invited to discuss the business application rationale and other issues facing the mortgage industry at this challenging time.
Barry Thomas initially provided an illuminating business overview of the objectives of the commissions and products standards, as well as strategies for implementation at low cost to deliver real business benefits. A copy of his presentation slides are available on the website in the conference papers section.
Mike Thanos from LTX chaired open discussions on a panel consisting of Joe Sirianni of Smartline, Joanne Mather of Mortgage Choice, Barry Thomas from LTX, Blair Keenan of ANZ and Erik Fenna of NextGen.net; addressing how the new standards can be best implemented into both lending and broking business.
With commissions now a headline topic in the industry, Joe Sirianni reiterated the benefits of improved accuracy and timeliness of commission’s data to lenders through an automated process. Barry Thomas outlined LIXI Commissions provides a way for banks to make life much easier for their brokers with very little effort at all. He added that systems changes and improved reporting now required by changes in commissions structures makes for a timely opportunity to deliver LIXI commissions files. Joanne Mather warns, however, that LIXI needs to review the standard to ensure that it measures up to the new commission’s criteria set out by some lenders recently.
From a lenders’ point of view, Blair Keenan explained that the real barrier to implementation in a major financial institution was return on investment. In a competitive arena for project funding, these projects did not make a sufficiently compelling business case to get prioritised by the banks. This view was echoed by other bank representatives in the audience when they confirmed that it’s never easy or inexpensive when working within a large financial institution to affect processing changes.
The concern expressed by a number of lenders, that displaying product information in a standard way would undermine their competitive advantage, was discussed by Joanne Mather with the audience. There was general agreement that this would not be an issue given the information is already in the public domain. Use of standards could improve clarity of information and speed to market without exposing lender intellectual property. Calls to decipher inconsistent or unclear information in marketing materials provided to third parties were inefficient for both brokers and lenders.
Erik Fenna, representing NextGen.Net, promoted the concept that the products standard can be developed almost independently of existing standards and processes and then added onto existing systems. He added that LIXI would be in a good position to offer members both lenders and brokers advice and assistance on how they could implement the new products standard in conjunction with their existing platforms.
A discussion ensued comparing the similarities and differences between Products and Commissions, from a business perspective. Erik observed that unlike Products, the Commissions standard requires a much higher level of integration and therefore the panel agreed that the best time to implement is as part of a larger overall project development on commission processes.
Joanne Mather made the point that both standards have a string similarity in that they require the Lender to provide the broker with ongoing data and information.
Questions from the audience raised a variety of pertinent issues, particularly one on the role of regulation in providing unambiguous and timely product information to the customer. Drawing from UK experiences, LIXI standards could prove to be far more important under a regulated environment.
The interesting debate was continued over drinks and a thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all. LIXI would like to thank LTX for sponsoring the Evening Series and Standard & Poor’s for hosting the event.
We look forward to seeing you at our annual LIXI Industry Forum at the Westin Sydney on 10 September 2008 where these and more strategic issues will be discussed and developed amongst the mortgage industries leading influencers.
 
|
