Written by Anthea Mallasch

As the average number of documents requested by banks rises to an additional 3 to 4 documents per borrower, it’s no wonder mortgage advisers are swimming neck-deep in a paper-filled pool mistaken by an ‘office’ during the fact find process.

This has led towards the growing demand of digitized documents from clients to help ease the complex procedure of securing a home loan – and according to NZ Adviser, mortgage brokers have finally found the (virtual) jackpot!

James Sampson, CEO of file sharing platform FileInvite, says a large volume of documentation goes through the software every day. In an interview between Sampson and NZ Adviser, the CEO stated that in the last half of 2018 the number of documents being processed through FileInvite increased by 35% per loan application.

“That lines up with the lot of feedback that we get from advisers, specifically around the complexity of what the financial lending institutions are requesting. Off the back of the Royal Commission, we’ve seen increased requests for validation of living expenses, and fact finding has been a lot more rigorous. We’ve tried to digitize that fact finding process as much as possible.”

Although FileInvite was originally targeted towards the web design sector, the overwhelming response from mortgage brokers means that the company has now created an adviser-specific feature within the application process. Majority of the company’s key focuses are now centered on the mortgage adviser space. 

“When we went to market with our original platform which was focused on web design, the mortgage brokers jumped on as the documentation process was their biggest headache…We’ve really worked closely with the advisers since then and listened to their feedback, and now we’ve developed features specifically for the mortgage broker space,” Sampson says.

Not only will the ability to digitize documentation benefit the advisers, but the clients as well. Providing an online option with the ability to digitally sign documents within a secure environment, that keeps everything out of adviser inboxes, can help create a smooth loan application experience. Not to mention the benefits this would have towards compliance.

“It’s also about the client experience and referrals, so you want your client to have a seamless experience as possible,” says Sampson.

Garth Hinton, a member of FileInvite’s new lead investor, Flying Kiwi Angels, joins the board as Director and Chair.

“FileInvite is addresses a real pain point among advisor-based businesses and over time will reduce the costs throughout the whole value chain for a process like a loan,” he tells Scoop.co.nz.

Overall, the benefits on going digital significantly outweigh the over-use of paper. It is clear that we are heading towards a world where everything is digitally processed and we can finally kiss goodbye the guilty overflowing bins sitting in the corner of the office and advisers can pull their heads up from that paper-filled pool (A.K.A. the office).