CBA adopts Open Banking for mortgage brokers via NextGen’s platform

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has become one of the first lenders to enable Open Banking for mortgage brokers in NextGen’s loan lodgement platform ‘ApplyOnline’.

According to NextGen, in Australia fewer than 15% of all applications are approved without the need for additional information post-submission, resulting in an average 14-day waiting period for unconditional approval across the industry.

Technology solution provider NextGen, which is an accredited data recipient under Australia’s Consumer Data Right, uses government-regulated data sources to ensure the quality of application is high.

NextGen’s ApplyOnline auto-populates customer data and generates “tailored” bank statements.

Tony Carn, NextGen’s chief customer officer, called the integration significant.

“CBA’s use of Open Banking in ApplyOnline marks a transformative leap forward for the mortgage broking industry in Australia,” he said.

“This is the step change the industry has been looking for and CBA’s decision underscores its commitment to leadership in technology and customer-centricity.”

Michael Baumann, executive general manager home buying at CBA, said: “Through adopting Open Banking for mortgage brokers via ApplyOnline, we hope to be able to create a more seamless home loan application experience for our customers and to equip brokers with the tools they need to best support their customers in reaching their homeownership goals.”

Carn added that Open Banking data expedites approval processes, thereby “reducing reworks and enabling smoother processing” and also helps to minimise fraud risk “while preserving the integrity, authenticity and provenance of customer data”.

Last month, CBA’s venture arm x15ventures agreed to acquire cloud-based invoice lending platform Waddle.

Bringing the technology in-house will enable the bank to grow its ‘Stream Working Capital’ product.