Fintech and Property: What You Need to Know

Why Fintech?

Fintech is disrupting the global finance industry, to the benefit of both businesses and consumers.

Advancements in communication and information technology has enabled the rapid growth of technology platforms that provide transactional services. Online payment systems, debt platforms and online exchanges allow companies to better manage their clients and use the data collected to provide the best possible service.

The Australian industry has placed fifth globally in adopting new Fintech products, with 37 per cent of the digitally-active population currently using a Fintech product. These figures are driven by strong uptake from the millennial market, who will make up 50 per cent of Australia’s workforce in the next five years.

In its latest Banking on the Future Report, KPMG reports on emerging trends concerning Gen Y professionals and how they spend their money.

“Delivering an enhanced customer experience is the key to attracting and retaining this group,” KPMG partner Daniel Knoll said.

“Convenience, whether managing money, making payments or accessing funds has become the cornerstone of true engagement.”

Consumer behaviour has changed in recent years, due to new technology and products on the market. This has driven a transition toward platform-based business models as the consumer is demanding more personalisation when using products – they want it to be as easy as possible to use and they want it to happen faster than ever before!

Using Fintech in the property industry

Australians embrace technology in everyday life and they expect it to be part of everything they do.

For the last three years, Fintech has been one of the fastest growing industries in Australia, with the number of registered companies growing from around 100 in 2015 to 600 in 2018.

With the rapid growth of the industry in Australia, the door is open for the property industry to benefit.

What Fintech products will the property industry gain the most benefit from?

Data Analytics: Using information and data from Fintech platforms will help advisors and agents to make informed decisions for their clients. They will be able to get a better understanding of the client’s overall position, while also increasing the level of personalisation for the client.

Personal Finance Tools: New Fintech products, especially in the personal finance space, have the potential to transform the real estate industry. Knowing your overall position and advisors having access to all that information in one place allows them to introduce products and properties that are tailored for their financial position, and once they have purchased it allows them to track the performance of the property.

Investment Property Calculation Tools: New forecasting tools are also on the way. The current gap in the market is currently filled by excel spreadsheets.

New products coming to the Australian market will allow you to add acquisition costs, investment income, funding structures and deductions for properties to help with projections and calculate after tax cashflow for your entire property portfolio. These tools will be beneficial for agents, advisors and also avid property investors and will improve a process that is currently very time consuming and outdated.

Raising Capital: There are a number of avenues available for raising capital and the digitalisation of fundraising will open up new opportunities. Using Fintech products will not only speed up the process, but it will also open the door for reaching new investors through a number of online platforms.

Blockchain: This technology can potentially transform the property industry. There are a number of ways this can happen but the speed of transactions and the increase in transparency it would bring to the industry are the two that stand out.

Although these are the two that stand out right now, there are many people looking into how this new technology can be best used and alternative ways it can disrupt the industry.

How do Fintech products best support the industry?

When considering products that have potential to support the property sector in Australia, the WLTH Digital Portfolio Manager stands out.

The platform allows the user to manage all of their assets in one place, removing the requirement to have different apps and logins for all aspects of their portfolio.

Once information is loaded on the platform, the live data feeds pulls up-to-date information from banking institutions, RP Data, Redbook, ASX and superfunds, to calculate the overall net position of the user.

This allows the user to share this information with their advisors, controlling the access that each member of their team is granted.

Managing a property has never been easier for someone using the WLTH platform.

Once they have loaded in their home or investment property their overall position will include the live value of the property with data pulled from RP Data.

WLTH also allows you to add your property manager for Integrated Rent Statements, produces monthly valuations on your investment properties and detailed reports to help keep track of property and suburb performance.

Another feature is being able to discover how much equity you have, find out what clients can purchase and track progress towards adding further properties into their portfolio.

With document storage also built into the platform, it allows property documentation such as purchase documents and depreciation schedules to be loaded in and saved to the platform for the user’s convenience.

The future of Fintech and property

The real estate sector is ripe for disruption, and there are a number of ways that Fintech will continue to influence the property industry and increase the speed of how things are done.

Consumers are demanding much more personalisation in every aspect of their life and without incorporating technology it is very hard for businesses to maintain levels of service without increasing headcount.

Using tech products will provide access to an immense amount of data and when used correctly can provide the personalisation expected today, giving clients exactly what they want in a shorter amount of time than managing it manually, having to go back and forward to get additional information.

Technology is here to stay and early adopters will position themselves ahead of the pack.

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