This top award winner is working with mortgage lenders to help overcome the stress experienced by one in three property consumers who are frustrated by errors that often occur using outdated pen and paper property settlement methods
Guiding 132 mortgage lenders to digitise property transactions has earned Chief Financial Services Officer Marielle Yeoh the Money Management, IT Innovator of the Year award.
Ms Yeoh works for Property Exchange Australia – PEXA – the digital start-up that’s transforming how banks, lawyers and conveyancers transact property. PEXA evolved from a successfully implemented Federal and State Government (COAG) reform to bring conveyancing into the digital economy.
With value exceeding $7.2 trillion dollars, residential property remains Australia’s largest asset class, yet until recently, properties were only exchanged and settled manually. Consumers often bore the pain points that can occur using outdated pen and paper property settlement methods.
Over the past 12 months Ms Yeoh and her team have worked tirelessly steering lenders – representing 98% of the Australian mortgage lending market – onto PEXA’s online property exchange, with more than 90% of all standalone transactions and 50% of all refinances now completed digitally through PEXA.
“Together with lenders and conveyancers, PEXA is bringing property sales into the 21st Century to help overcome the stress experienced by one in three property consumers who are frustrated by errors that often occur using outdated pen and paper property settlement methods,” she said.
“By moving property transactions online, Australians now benefit from a fast, safe and more efficient property exchange process, reducing delays caused by manual errors, improving how homes are bought and sold.
“PEXA is in turn guiding banks, credit unions and mutuals to digitise property transactions. To move the industry online this quickly required an unprecedented level of cooperation from Australia’s entire banking community, with natural competitors coming together to collaborate on the development and execution of paperless property exchange.
“PEXAs Financial Services team has helped build a network through collaboration, rather than viewing this as a straight technology project. Through a series of integration efforts, PEXA has been embedded into core banking infrastructure. Helping mortgage lenders understand the upstream opportunities including consumer apps and workflow dashboards represents the next frontier in customer banking.”
