Master Later Life Lending - By Air

Can AI and Automation Enhance Efficiency in Later Life Lending?

September 12, 2024 • Paul Glynn • Season 1 • Episode 3

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What if you could revolutionise your advisory process and dramatically improve efficiency with the power of digital technology? This episode is your gateway to understanding just that. We sit down with industry experts Nicola Firth from Knowledge Bank and Matt Taylor from Equilaw to unpack how digital tools like client portals and online document management systems are not only streamlining processes but also saving brokers and advisors significant time and effort. Nicola shares how Knowledge Bank’s comprehensive criteria search system is a game-changer for brokers, and Matt discusses how Equilaw is leveraging tech-driven solutions to adapt to evolving client behaviours.

Discover the future of client engagement as we dive into the impact of advanced case management software and client portals on customer experience in the mortgage industry. These innovations are freeing up staff to focus on building stronger client relations, while also allowing clients to interact outside traditional business hours, thus boosting engagement and accuracy. With the ability to handle complex cases more efficiently, advisors are seeing better business outcomes and higher client satisfaction rates.

Moreover, we explore the transformative potential of AI in customer interactions. While AI brings incredible efficiencies and error reduction, it cannot replace the emotional intelligence of human advisors. Hear how leading digital brokers like Habito are setting the standard by successfully integrating AI and technology, streamlining the advisory process, and enhancing customer outcomes. Tune in to learn about the exciting future of integrating third-party systems and the importance of strong relationships with stakeholders in the ever-evolving financial services landscape.

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Paul Glynn:

Hello and welcome to the Master Later Life Lending podcast, where we explore the dynamic world of later life lending, equity release and the evolving needs of borrowers over the age of 50. I'm your host, Paul Glynn, and I'm excited to have you with us today. In this episode, we're discussing the role of digital technology in transforming the advisory process for later life clients. We'll explore the benefits of digital tools such as client portals and online document management systems, and the role they play in streamlining processes and improving efficiency. Joining us today are Nicola Firth from Knowledge Bank and Matt Taylor from Equilaw. Joining us today are Nicola Firth from Knowledge Bank and Matt Taylor from Equilaw. Knowledge Bank is a leading criterion search system in the UK, providing advisors with a comprehensive and up-to-date information to find the best financial products for their clients. Equilaw is a specialist law firm that's dedicated to equity release, offering expert legal services to ensure a smooth and efficient transaction for later life clients.

Paul Glynn:

So, without further ado, let's get started and welcome our guests, nicola Firth and Matt Taylor. So welcome Nicola, welcome Matt. Let's get started and get into our conversation today. So can we start off just by giving our podcast listeners and viewers an insight into your organization and the role that you play in that organization. So, matt, can I come to you first?

Matt Taylor:

Yeah, certainly Matt Taylor from Equilaw Solicitors. I'm the Business Development Director there. We're one of the specialist law firms that act in the later life lending space. So we've been around for about 20 years now acting specifically for clients taking out lifetime mortgages, rio products and even some home reversions back in the day. My role as business development director is to sort of help improve broker knowledge out there in terms of what the legal side looks like, troubleshooting and just making that client journey as good as we can do. What we've seen probably over the last sort of three, four, five years is a big change in client sort of behavior, how they want to interact with us, and we're moving away from sort of the traditional way that maybe a solicitor would interact with a customer into a more modern, tech driven, slick sort of process. So just really to reflect that, the kind of client behaviors that are out there and the demographics that we're seeing coming through now, compared to perhaps what we did three or four years, ago.

Paul Glynn:

That's brilliant and really good to hear. I think, seeing the pace of change post covid and during covid, that came from, and in particular, your organization. It looks like you've kept that pace of change up since then, which is really good to hear. And I think another another organization that again has worked really hard to take time out of the process to create more golden time for advisors to spend time with customers is Knowledge Bank. So, nicola, can you tell us a bit more about Knowledge Bank and your role there as well?

Nicola Firth:

Yes, definitely. So I think, to give the listeners some context, my background in the industry was as a broker and I saw the way that the industry had changed, I guess following the you know, the credit crunch that we had 2008 and on from there. So lenders were sort of struggling to sort of set their stalls out. You know it's all about criteria because there wasn't a lot to pick between rates at the time. I know just recently we had a little bit more fluctuation, but for a long time rates were quite steady and sort of set. So criteria became the battleground for lenders and you know, as a broker I was frustrated the fact that we were sort of having to keep all of this on spreadsheets and you know, ring rounds, send emails. It's like there must be something. We've got product sourcing systems. Why have we not got a system with all this criteria on? So that's where Knowledge Bank was born out of.

Nicola Firth:

So Knowledge Bank is now the UK's leading criteria search system. We have over 260 lenders on there, over 140,000 individual pieces of criteria, and that covers residential buy-to-let second charges, equitably self-built, bridging and commercial. So residential buy-to-let second charges, equitably self-built, bridging and commercial. So if you're looking to place a case, you look at all the individual circumstances of your client and also the property as well. Put that detail in and it will tell you which lender is most likely to lend on that case. So, again, just using technology to save brokers time. Saving time from trying to collate that information, retain it in a fast paced world, but also saving time in placing cases when you've got a customer there that's waiting to go. So that is what Knowledge Bank is.

Paul Glynn:

Thanks, nicola. So brilliant to hear those thoughts and outlines from both of you. I think it complements quite naturally the same sort of technology pillars and aspirations that we have here in AIR, where, again, we know that the research stage in the advice process is a very time-consuming one and ever becoming a more complex one, and our sourcing platform is designed again to take a lot of the pain and the time out of that journey and give advisors up-to-date live pricing information based on the customer inputs that they put in. So it sounds like, nicola, again, great work being done at that front end of the process by your organization and, matt, great work being done to take time out of the process at the back of the journey as well.

Paul Glynn:

Okay, I want to get in now to a bit more detail on your thoughts around um the benefits of technology in the market. So kind of starter for 10 question, just to draw some of that out, is you know where, where in your mind, can, can um technology really add value to businesses through either compliance you know the compliance aspects of the process or driving a better customer or commercial outcome. So, matt, can I come to you first on that? What are your thoughts on the role technology can play?

Matt Taylor:

yeah, I think solicitors probably um. You know, if you, if you look through, uh, just the average solicitor rating on trust pilot, that they're not rated very highly. A lot of solicitors are quite traditional in the way that they interact with clients. The paperwork's clunky, it might take quite a long time to get replies and responses and generally clients don't get a great experience through the process. For us, probably about four or five years ago, you know, clients don't get a great experience through through the process, um, for us, probably about four or five years ago, we started um to invest quite a lot of money in um the development of our case management system, which is a multi sort of module um piece of software that we can use for various um sort of things throughout the process, ultimately getting a client from instruction through to completion um ideally as quickly as possible and, you know, making sure that that the broker themselves hasn't got a you know way in with with lots of chasing and requests for updates and things like that.

Matt Taylor:

So for us, certainly from a a time-saving point of view, we feel that having or being able to leverage a really high quality piece of software behind the scenes just gives our staff more time to be doing the nice things with clients rather than chasing paperwork, being on the phone for long periods of time. You know we can get the computers to do that and then spend more time making sure that client fully understands exactly what they are sort of taking out the legal obligations of the mortgage contract and can make their journey as smooth as possible. I'm sure we'll come on to talk about some of the individual elements that we have, but ultimately I think you need to try and get that balance between using the software and the technology advantages out there to reduce the admin and leave the staff to do the nice consumer-friendly pieces.

Paul Glynn:

Thanks, matt, and do we feel that customers and advisors are ready for that kind of technological integration and dependency?

Matt Taylor:

Yeah, certainly a big piece of our more recent developments is the launch of our client portal, and that was really driven by the kind of feedback we were getting at the end of the process.

Matt Taylor:

You know, clients average age is is is sort of slowly ticking down year by year. It feels like um probably a little bit more sophisticated in terms of their um sort of desire and and and request to to use sort of online systems and software, and the overriding feedback we had was we wanted um some way of interacting with you outside of business hours. Potentially clients, you know, still working, still busy, um not able to take calls and deal with email traffic nine till five, but they can sit down in the evening once they finished um you know, their dinner of a glass of wine and complete quite a lot of the requirements that that we would be asking them for. So, yeah, certainly from our side we've seen that the client um desire to have that kind of software and the ability to interact with us electronically drive what we've delivered to the market so are you finding that access on demand at a point that suits a customer then, is actually leading to better engagement and more accurate information being put into the system?

Matt Taylor:

yeah, certainly we um certainly we spend at certain points during the process numerous minutes, hours wasted playing phone tennis with clients waiting for replies, when, if we can give them the ability to interact with us when it's suitable for them, a means that we're not wasting time chasing documents and and things um in the daytime. But also the client loves it, you know they. They don't feel like they're um sort of chasing us around or missing calls and and um sort of disrupting their day. So yeah, certainly um access to, to, to information and systems when they want them is the driving factor.

Paul Glynn:

Thanks, matt and Nicola. Are you seeing the same sort of things? I know your services is a B2B-focused service, but that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year.

Nicola Firth:

Nature of technology are you seeing that that is now something that advisors are expecting and adapting to absolutely, that there's not a time of day or night, that our system is quiet now 24 hours a day. We have advisors on the system searching criteria that they work all sorts of hours and of course, that's around family. It may be around other commitments, around their clients, but that's the point, is there for them. So, if you think about the traditional way of placing a case, so you've got a case, you need to start ringing around lenders. You've got, obviously, mortgage help desks that are out there, but of course, you know we're talking predominantly nine to five. I know sometimes BDMs are great and sometimes they'll come back to you, perhaps in the evening, but ultimately an always on system is there when you're ready to work and all the answers are there as well. So, um, you know, the system itself is actually kept up to date by the lenders themselves. So, um, so you've always got the most up-to-date information there.

Nicola Firth:

So, and I think it is because if you think about an advisor, think about the old way, even if they've got their own spreadsheets to keep up to date, that's another job.

Nicola Firth:

You know advisors are very busy people and you know another job to try and keep spreadsheets up to date or little notes somewhere.

Nicola Firth:

You know it's all there in the system in a really user friendly way to extract that data and place those cases, which does give you more time to, first of all, spend with clients but also to do other things as well that are important to advisors business or in their personal lives.

Nicola Firth:

You know it's just taking that heavy lifting out of the advice process and helping them to place cases more quickly. And I think the other thing as well, paul, is we're talking about speeding things up, but actually what we're also doing at Knowledge Bank is giving advisors the opportunity to place cases that they actually might have walked away from previously because you know they didn't have the capacity or even the knowledge to think, oh, that lender might do that case. That's a piece of criteria. There's always something like when we do the air criteria clinics. There's always a bit of criteria that you think, oh, that's really good, I didn't know they could do that, so, so actually the the earning potential by using technology, by being able to place cases that you couldn't place place before. And, of course, really important is serving the customer, serving that client and being able to to meet their needs.

Paul Glynn:

Uh, with regards to borrowing, that you might not have thought was possible before yeah, and in that context, then, it's driving better customer outcomes through using technology, as well as driving a better return on the time and effort or money spent acquiring customers in terms of helping them convert with good advice through the process. So it's something that firms should be open to continually adapting to and changing as technology develops. But one aspect of, I think, both of your services is the way that technology can help evidence the process. So, matt, in the way that your service has developed, how can that help businesses and customers in terms of that better documentation of interactions and outcomes?

Matt Taylor:

Yeah, we use AI in a couple of places parts of the process now, and one of them is in the um sort of transcription of calls, um.

Matt Taylor:

So our systems now will um will produce a documented um, a piece of piece of information really that can be lodged to the file for for telephone calls, um that. That, that's that's there forever. So, um, whilst a recording you know a voice recording can be can be taken and lodged to the file um, you know, word document or a um, a, a piece of information with the with the words sort of down on on paper, allows um us to search for certain bits of information a lot easier, um, which makes things quicker, um more more speedy for the clients and also in terms of sort of protecting ourselves, going forward, you know, improving, improving that side of things as well. So it's it's quite early stages for us on on that front, but we're certainly going to be sort of developing that over time, um, particularly then to share back with brokers, to to potentially add to their compliance files as well. So, um, you know, every little bit of information has been gathered, recorded and be able to be searched and documented in the future.

Paul Glynn:

I mean, ai is a fascinating area. We'll touch again on that in a minute and in a bit more detail. I think, nicola, certainly you know that ability for an advisor to document how they've arrived at a decision is really important. You know what strides have you made as an organisation to support the advisor community now in what is becoming a really complicated marketplace?

Nicola Firth:

It is and the way that we've approached this is, if you think of the FCA's, what their requirements? They require an advisor to evidence their research. That's quite an open-ended ask really. If you think about it, you know how do you evidence your research? That, as with the FCA, that they're not prescriptive, they don't tell you how to do it, just tell you what they expect.

Nicola Firth:

So the evidence of research our industry as a whole has taken to mean the evidence of products. So how did you get to that product? And saving product sourcing results as your evidence of products. So how did you get to that product and saving product sourcing results as your evidence of research. But actually product sourcing is only one part of the story. How did you get to that lender? How did you get to that product?

Nicola Firth:

And, of course, criteria plays a massive, massive part in that. So our evidence of research once you put in the criteria categories that are relevant to your case, you found the lender, you can hit the evidence of research button and you've got the product sourcing results that you've already got from product sourcing and the criteria search results, as well as your evidence of research, and that's date and timestamps. And on this day, at this time. This is what this lender said the criteria was and that's really bolt and braces for any compliance file. Because in the event of a complaint, why did you go with this lender? Why was this recommendation?

Nicola Firth:

You've got that to fall back on, whereas without that, can you imagine going back around every lender saying, right, I need to know what your criteria was on this date at this time. You know, because criteria changes on such a regular basis, you know we see on average about 1,500 changes to criteria across the board every single week. That does fluctuate at different times of year but on average that's a lot of change to keep up with. I mean that is across all of the lending types, but it's still a lot of changes. So, looking at a compliance file, if you've got the product sourcing and the criteria search evidence of research in there, you are absolutely bolt and braces. So you can make sure that you know, if you ever did get a visit from the FCA, that you've really done the best by the customer. Again, going back to best customer outcomes. You have evidence that research. You've looked at absolutely everything and that was the best recommendation for the client in at that point time, which is what it's all about.

Paul Glynn:

Brilliant, thank you, and a lot of intelligence built into all of that technology as well. So I want to go back and just ask you both for your definition or description of AI, because it can mean a lot of different things to different people and, you know, can be something that advisors are wary of. You know, we certainly don't want to replace advisor intelligence in the process. We want to augment it. People should best, kind of in their own mind, think about AI and the practical and support you know practical nature of the support that AI can offer to their businesses and their customers so this is a massive subject now.

Nicola Firth:

Ai you know you're hearing it in the news and there's lots of scare stories about it, but actually used in the right way, it's, it's absolutely fantastic and so beneficial it's it can be the best employee you've ever had or never had, should I say and, of course, doesn't cost anything. Ai really is being used all the time. It's being used in the background, around machine learning. That's also artificial intelligence as well, but, of course, true AI, which is learning actually on the go as well. So being able to check things, being able to populate things and check them and sense, check them where, as actually you know, humans do make errors. Of course they do, but AI just doesn't. As long as it's programmed right in the first instance and that learning process is there, you know it is the best check you'll ever have really. And AI is, it is coming down the line and it's here and it's here to stay.

Nicola Firth:

I think one of the things I would say is, from an advisor's point of view, that there's two things really, I think. First of all, advisors might think oh yeah, we've heard this before you know around, sort of eight years ago, seven, eight years ago, we had the robo advisors coming in, didn't we? You know the Habito and Trussell that came into the market and you know they made a really big thing about. You know we'll not need advisors, they'll be gone, we'll be taken over. This is the age of the robo-advice Now. This is before AI. So quite a bold statement, really. And you know that just didn't work because of course wasn't. The kind of technology they've got is great, but it doesn't replace the emotional intelligence that an advisor has and the kinds of conversations that an advisor can have with their clients. Now what I will say is fast forward to where we are now and I think those guys have learned a lot and they're still around and actually they're doing the job brilliantly.

Nicola Firth:

So what they're doing is utilizing AI and other technology to speed things up. So speed things up for the customer, but also make a more streamlined process. So if you look at somebody like Habito, for example, who are now, you know they're not robo-vices, it's a digital broker. So look at that as a great example. An average broker in the residential market, for example, in normal times will do about 10 to 12 cases every month and that's a good full-time going at it and really writing that business, their advisors with the user technology are doing 30 to 40 a month, and that's because they've got somebody in the background doing everything for them. So the advisor is just to use a football analogy they're just scoring the goals. They've got somebody else doing everything mowing the pitch, doing the kit, setting that goal up and all they're doing is hitting it in the back of the net. So that makes a massive, massive difference when you're able to utilize that technology.

Nicola Firth:

But what I would say in terms of AI, it can be quite confusing for advisors to think, okay, what should I be doing?

Nicola Firth:

What should I be using? How can it help in my business? And I would just say you know, trust the providers that are out there now. Let them deal with the complexities of AI so you don't have to, so that by the time you're using a tool, you know, as Matt's just said with Equil Equilaw you know all of that's going on in the background. You can trust that because they've done that research, they've deployed the, the api, they've done the testing.

Nicola Firth:

So by the time it's delivered to you as effectively the customer uh, you know the advisor being the customer in that sense you know you've got a great piece of technology that you can use and trust and that will really benefit your business and, guaranteed commercially, it will save you money in the business because it's doing the work of however many other people, but just streamlining the process as opposed to. You know that you don't need people. You absolutely do, because of course we say it's emotional intelligence, isn't it? You know the kinds of questions and conversations that you have with a customer when you're sat with them that it just wouldn't be possible. And also as well, the customer is going to respond to a person far better than a computer, especially when we think about the age group that we're dealing with in later life lending as well.

Paul Glynn:

Yeah, and I think it's really interesting to hear that. Nicola, I think definitely we've picked up people confusing AI in terms of what it means in reality. It's already in our day-to-day lives in a lot of ways. The evidence of files of conversations and interactions is a brilliant way that your organization is utilizing AI and, nicola, I that there's other areas that in day-to-day we're using it as well, but, um, it should definitely be an augmentation tool. It should definitely be a way of improving our overall interaction with the customer through the creation of time, um, and better engagement.

Paul Glynn:

So you know, we in we're trying to use our navigator tool the same way. It isn't about the tool itself and the way it works. It's about how the advisor uses it, and then it's good evidence of a good, solid, comprehensive conversation with the customer at the back. So I could put the two of you on the spot a little bit. What areas would you like to see further utilize AI as part of our process to make advisors lives better or help drive customers to a better outcome? Are there any areas that you think we should be focusing on as a later life lending market?

Matt Taylor:

um. Well, I think, in terms of how we use ai and and um sort of the, the digital tools that we've got our hands at, equal or it's certainly not to replace staff or or have a requirement for for less humans in the office. It really is um a way of stripping out as much admin, as much um sort of heavy lifting as we as we can do. So. I mentioned earlier that we we've started to transcribe a lot of the calls that come through um, which has been great from a quality assurance point of view. Um, we have a, a paperwork production and check-in module now which allows us to produce legal reports and other documentation that the client will need to sign during their face-to-face meeting, without a human actually being involved in it. In terms of the creation of the paperwork, it's still vitally important that a human is involved in the quality checking and the guardrails to make sure that, particularly with newer products coming into the market, slight changes in terms of conditions. That's all built into the learning process for the AI software.

Matt Taylor:

So for us, I think, in terms of what we can leverage further will be probably integrations with other third parties, whether that be maybe lab registry from a title download point of view and doing some stuff with them going forward to move away from the reliance on wet signature documents, and then, probably, um, our lender partners and lender solicitor partners. So you know what? What can we do there to strip out time? Um, what can we do to strip out manual checking of documentation, to to ultimately improve the process and speed things up? So I think we're, um, we're very early on in our journey, um, and it'd be exciting to sort of fast forward five years and see sort of what the world likes that looks like then, because I think it'll be very different than it does now yeah, definitely a more joined up ecosystem with ai and and tech at the heart of it.

Paul Glynn:

Um definitely feels that that's the direction of travel. Nicola, when you look at your customer base both from a lender perspective and you look at your service and the way it interacts with both later life lending and the traditional mortgage market, how do you feel the later life lending space utilizes technology compared to the, the traditional residential mortgage space?

Nicola Firth:

yes, yeah, absolutely that. I'm really, really impressed with what I've seen in the in the later life space. I have to say it's um, look, air, were the, the first um sourcing set. So products throughout the whether we're talking about the traditional mortgage space or the complex specialist space or later life lending the first ones to bring product and criteria together in a search together so you could go on and search the product and criteria for your customer. So that was an industry first and we had Air and the later life market leading the charge, which was which was really great and and we're still seeing that.

Nicola Firth:

So I do think technology and actually especially impressive when you think that the later life market was quite a long way behind. Um, I guess out of necessity, because you know the residential market alone, you know. You know, if you add buy, select to that as well, the sourcing systems, you know that the residential market alone, you know. If you add buy to let to that as well, the sourcing systems, you know they've been going for many, many years, thousands, tens of thousands of products on there. The later life space just didn't need that because there weren't that many lenders, there weren't that many products and of course we've seen that grow and grow. So actually, you know, with air sourcing, you know that was born out of necessity and then, you know, really overtaken the you know, the traditional mortgage space. So we just see that carrying on really, because, you know, later life does seem to be currently right at the forefront and the decisions that are being made and the investment in technology is really, really impressive. It really is.

Nicola Firth:

And what I love about it as well, you know, there's always the customer at the heart of it. That's a massive thing. You know you get a lot of technology firms that are, you know they're large technology, they're VC-backed, you know they're all about. You know they're running to an exit, they've got a return, they're trying to get into a profit, they've got these big, you know big budgets and burn rates. But actually are they delivering for the customer? Are they thinking about the end customer and what's needed there? And I think you know I can hand on heart say that in the later life space, what I've seen is every decision taken with technology is thinking about those comprehensive conversations, about getting the best customer outcomes possible and with the advisor and the customer at the heart of everything it does. So it's really impressive, and you know long may that continue.

Paul Glynn:

Thanks, nicola. I mean, that's good to hear, I think. Matt, what would your advice be then, having heard those comparisons from Nicola? If you're a traditional mortgage practice, you've had a business in play for a little while um, your customer base is getting that bit older. Then what would your kind of thoughts be on firms that are thinking of moving into that later life lending space? What difference could technology make for their ability to do that compared to what it would have been like four or five years ago?

Matt Taylor:

yeah, probably initially it's gonna, it's gonna save them some time.

Matt Taylor:

I think you know, as you start maybe providing advice on your first few cases, or even, you know, get into just a research stage, um, as nicola's mentioned um, you know the marketplace now is a lot more diverse in the in the later life, lending sort of space and if you're not um used to sort of working in that environment, it might well take you quite a long time to to get the right kind of outcomes.

Matt Taylor:

So, certainly, embracing technology, um really making some strong relationships with, with the third parties that you're going to need to um lean on through through the journey, whether that's air and the source inside, whether that's lenders and their bdms, um and ultimately solicitors then who would be dealing with the sort of back-end process, um. So I suppose my my advice would be to embrace as much of it as you you can do um and really build as many relationships as possible from from the outset in terms of it as you you can do um and really build as many relationships as possible from from the outset in terms of the, the stakeholders you're going to need to work with going forward, because it is very different to the residential world thanks, man.

Paul Glynn:

I think what one of those relationships should be, and and uh, with their academy, because that's a again, it's tech led, it's a learning management system. All of the information is there, as we described before, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, so to suit the time and the planning of the individual advisor. So we, we can definitely see an air technology helping people move through that um academy process with a digital accreditation at the end of it. So so definitely we're here to help that process. Um, nicola, are there any, any recommendations, either from support in your organization or wider in the market, for advisors that want to embrace technology to improve outcomes and drive efficiency in their business, but also help them transform it?

Nicola Firth:

yes, definitely. I think having those conversations with you know, whether it be yours or Air or you know there are so many companies out there that are able to sort of help and give advice with regards to embracing that kind of technology. I think, from an advisor's perspective, it's understanding what you actually want to get out of it. So look at your process, look at your business. Where are the pain points? You know, if you went back to day one again and you could wave a magic wand and say, okay, this is how we do it in an ideal world, where are those pain points now and how do you fix those? And I guarantee that the solution will be there within technology. So the solution that we were trying to solve with Knowledge Bank, that pain point of, okay, I've got this client and there's a plethora of criteria. Some of it's quite complex certain circumstances, quirks on the property, right, how am I going to place this case? Because I don't know off the top of my head who will do this.

Nicola Firth:

Going around lenders' websites takes time. Yes, they're 24 hours a day, but there's limited information on them. Ringing around mortgage desks and BDMs that's fine in working hours, but not when it's evening and when advisors are working late at night. So by putting all of that information on there again spreadsheets they're out of date. The minute you say something onto a spreadsheet it's out of date. And of course lenders can't update your spreadsheets, whereas we have lenders directly updating KnowledgeBank. So there's that solution to that particular problem.

Nicola Firth:

How do you place cases quickly and at any time of the day and literally save hours and sometimes days waiting for people to come back to you? You go on KnowledgeBank, you put the details in and it will tell you which lenders will accept that case Now from there. If you want to have a conversation with the lender, then that's fine, but at least you're only making that one call and not ringing around. So that was a pain point. Certainly, when I was a broker, that was the pain point I was trying to solve. So that's one example of how to do that.

Nicola Firth:

But if you look across your business and look at that holistically, it might be pain points, but it might also be things that either you don't enjoy doing or you're not good at doing. I think sometimes being honest about that in your own business pays you dividends, because actually if it's not your thing and you don't enjoy it, there's got to be another way and, as I say, technology quite often does fill that gap. It's just looking to what's out there and what's available and of course, you know you get consistently. You know systems like knowledge bank, companies like hair. We have our products, but we know what else is out there as well in the different, different areas, whether that be crm systems or something like that. So so quite often you can get some helpful advice, even though it's not something that that company actually do themselves, or point you in the right direction thanks, nicola.

Paul Glynn:

So over the course of this conversation, our listeners will have heard quite a lot of exciting detail around some of the innovations that are out there, but also, as you just outlined there, nicola, there's a lot of opportunity for firms to embrace technology and take pain out of their businesses and continue to do a great job for even more customers, because that's the end output, isn't it? It creates time to see more customers. So my takeaways from the session today have been to be more open-minded in terms of AI and the role that that can play in the process and helping develop, certainly within AI, and if it applies within AI, it will apply in all of our businesses. I think we shouldn't take for granted the work that's been done in the later life lending space on APIs. That does give us a chance to create an opportunity for firms to come into the market more seamlessly from the mortgage space as their client banks are getting older, and that's certainly something we want to embrace here and there. But also, I think the points that you made, matt, on we shouldn't rest on our laurels in terms of exploring the integration points across that ecosystem, because the more we can work together as a community of businesses in this space, the more we can create a better journey where firms can choose partners across a number of different organizations to build a journey that suits their advice philosophy and their advice process.

Paul Glynn:

So massive opportunity and certainly an area I think that, as our in these podcast series, we should try and revisit at some point in the future. So thank you both for your time, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today and, hatefully for those people who have invested the time in the podcast, you've taken a lot away from it. So thank you everybody for your time today. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Your support helps others discover the show. Don't forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode and follow us on social media for exclusive content. We'll be back next week with another great, comprehensive conversation.