Stephen Moore joins Sherlok as chief commercial officer

Fintech Sherlok is aiming to shake up the mortgage sector with its innovative AI-driven technology and has now appointed highly respected and experienced industry leader Stephen Moore as its chief commercial officer.

Moore (pictured above) boasts more than 25 years’ experience in financial services, including his most recent role as CEO of aggregator brands PLAN, Choice and FAST, which have now united under the banner of LMG (Loan Market Group).

He also held senior positions ING Australia, MLC, NAB, and was the co-founder of ubank, possessing skills in wealth management, banking and broking. Moore also runs strategic advisory firm Stephen Moore Advisory, which he set up in June 2023, shortly after leaving LMG.

Sherlok was founded in 2019, and the tech firm monitors and manages more than $70 billion of home loans for Australia’s top mortgage brokers, while also working with aggregators and brokerages. Its focus on mortgage retention through AI has resulted in 700% growth.

MPA caught up with Moore to talk about his new role at Sherlok, what motivated him to join the company  and why he thinks Sherlok’s automated repricing and home loan refinance platform can revolutionise the world of broking and lending.

Moore said through his advisory firm he has been working with businesses he really liked and believed had enormous potential.

“Sherlok is certainly one of those. I think [my new role] is a fantastic opportunity to make a big difference in the broker market,” said Moore.

“A big part of the future for the broker industry is around data and data insights and that’s probably a trend that will continue to play out over the next five years. Businesses that have that forward-facing approach, I like.”

Moore said the other factor that attracted him to join Sherlok was the business’s vision.

“It's about making brokers the hero by saving clients money. It’s a really tangible offer. The way it does that is by using smarts around AI and other insights, but even more importantly, backing it up in the most simplified way.

“That's super important in the broker market because for most good brokers their rarest commodity is in fact time. So having a solution that fundamentally transforms the time required for either reprice or refinance at the same time adding enormous value to clients, it's a nice sweet spot I reckon.”

How Sherlok’s platform works

Moore said looking at traditional retention in broking, the primary focus had been on “regular and ongoing communication with your clients, which is absolutely the right thing to do”.

But Sherlok took the retention play a step further by using data insights on the broker’s portfolio to identify customers who were at risk.

“[Then] identifying where there's a significant price disparity versus their current rate, and then in an automated way with the broker’s approval, is to automatically go back to the lender to get a better price or, alternatively, if they're too far out of market, automatically trigger action for a refinancing opportunity.”

Moore said Sherlok currently worked with more than 500 brokers and to date its tools had resulted in a 32% reduction in broker customer loss. There were a further 700 brokers in the pipeline to come onboard with Sherlok.

“That’s a really tangible benefit. In the first year, it yields an additional $42,000 for the average broker. It's not just a retention activity and you hope it has an outcome – it had hard-dollar results which are good for the client and good for the broker.”

The AI-driven insights now involve 300,000 loans that Sherlok looks after for broker subscribers.

Moore said this technology had enabled Sherlok to be very smart about how to address the risk of losing clients in a balanced way.

Benefits for lenders

Sherlok’s platform also provided a fantastic outcome for lenders, Moore said.

“For most lenders, you typically only get an opportunity to reprice and therefore retain a customer at the end of the process. The customer is looking to move and then you’re desperately trying to run around before the loan discharges as a lender.

“If you don't take action as a lender with this client and reprice, odds are you will lose that client. Using Sherlok is not only smart targeting for lender customers,  in the long run it means you're far more likely to retain because you're taking a proactive measure.”

Moore’s goals in his new role

“Sherlok is a fantastic business with leading edge technology, but like any fintechs, the biggest challenge is around scalability,” said Moore.

This where Moore aimed to add value by growing Sherlok’s reach and getting it "embedded” right across the industry, working with more aggregators and lodgement providers.

Sherlok founder and CEO Adam Grocke welcomed Moore's appointment.

“It’s not every day you get to work with people of Stephen’s calibre, and we are thrilled to have him join Sherlok,” Grocke said.

“We’re on a mission to change how brokers engage with their existing clients with more game-changing products launching in 2024. Stephen's extensive experience and strategic acumen will be crucial in accelerating our mission, engaging with the right strategic partners and unlocking Sherlok’s full potential for broker.”

Do you use Sherlok and if so, what do you think of the retention and refinancing tool? Comment below