A year in reflection: Suncorp's Mark Vilo

Suncorp head of bank intermediaries, Mark Vilo, has been nearly one year in the role. He talks to MPA about the challenges and working closer with the bank's broker partners.

What have been the biggest strategic challenges for Suncorp in the past year?
From a business perspective, we have seen some really great outcomes as the result of our customer strategy which is centred on delivering greater value for all of our customers and broker partners, and I believe this will only continue as we accelerate investment in the marketplace. We know that a substantial proportion of our business comes through a third party – where a customer is empowering a broker or adviser to act on their behalf, therefore it’s important that we include this channel in our definition of ‘customer’.

From a banking perspective, the industry remains under the spotlight and as such we have seen a raft of changes, reviews and enquiries. We believe the banking sector is strong but there are areas that require policy reform to achieve sustainable competition. We joined with other regional banks to detail these in our joint submission the Productivity Commission and we’re looking forward to seeing the report next year, and hopefully heading towards competitive neutrality.

What have been the major challenges for the banking sector in the past 12 months?
Our industry is undergoing a lot of change and we are working to respond in a meaningful way to those change drivers. With policy and regulatory changes, we have seen pricing changes, and we have tried to be as clear and proactive with our communication to brokers regarding those changes in order to help them manage customer expectations. It’s certainly an interesting time to be in home lending – we basically have two-distinct markets, the Sydney and Melbourne housing market, and everywhere else. We understand the regulators need to take action in these markets due to the impact of investor lending and specifically the impact of interest only lending. While the limits are an important lever, the changes effectively ‘lock in’ market share which means we need to be extremely agile with our decision making around this type of lending.

We also understand the uncertainty across the industry in relation to remuneration structures, but what I’ve seen in the last ten months is an industry that’s prepared to hold the mirror up and take very positive strides in self-regulation. The mere fact that the industry can pull together in a collaborative and constructive way a forum of brokers, aggregators, associations, consumer groups and lenders in the interests of the customer is testament to the passion for the industry and the desire to work together. It’s great to be part of this discussion.

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How has Suncorp worked closer with its broker partners in 2017?
One of the first things we did earlier in the year was seek feedback from some of our aggregator partners and brokers on what was and wasn’t working. Like many, we have struggled at times with our service and this has often been off the back of pricing campaigns. We also took a closer look at the service model we provided to brokers from a BDM perspective. In terms of product and pricing, we’ve worked hard over the last six months to be “always on”. That is, we don’t want to continue the cycle of chasing volume, rather we want to be better positioned in the market to remain competitive and consistent at all times. This is a strategy that’s helping to create a constant flow of business that is manageable. From a BDM perspective, we’ve also moved away from our traditional territory model and aligned ourselves to our partners, the aggregator. We recognised the BDM isn’t always available, so we’ve balanced out the team with an equal number of phone-based BDMs. Even after three months we’re getting some very strong feedback about our alignment, as well as improved access.

Finally, at a strategic level we’ve embarked on our Synergy events around the country. Synergy was designed with our multiple industry partners in mind. It’s probably an industry first where we have designed an event for intermediaries with no boundaries. We’ve invited mortgage brokers, general insurance brokers, financial planners and corporate partners to get them thinking about a range of topics that are impacting their businesses now, and into the future. This includes discussing artificial intelligence, and the workforce of the future. We’re also showcasing technology that our business employs from cyclone response to magnetic car dent repair and our Money Profiles tool for customers. We want our broker partners to be thinking beyond their current environment and looking to the future and stimulating them with ideas they can take back to their business.

How is Suncorp planning to deliver more value to the broker channel in the next year?
We are working on a range of initiatives, including elevating the broker experience. There’s no question we have work to do, however we have smart people in our business that are working through the end-to-end process to understand how we can better serve our brokers and their customers. We’re also looking at ways we can enhance our Business Partners Online to make it more user friendly and provide information that’s relevant and up to date.

We recently conducted our first aggregator CEO forum with Suncorp’s Banking & Wealth CEO David Carter and other senior Suncorp leaders where we positioned our partnership strategy and asked them to hold us accountable. We had a great open conversation about the challenges and opportunities within our industry and again the candour of the conversation was a welcome indicator for the collaboration we are seeing across the industry.

In what ways have you utilised technology to deliver a smarter way of doing business?
We are working on several initiatives including via the NextGen platform to help with efficiencies with processing applications to help brokers secure the customer and transaction faster. Our branch network is also continuing to change to better meet the needs of customers, allowing them to bank the way they want, in a location that suits them – whether that be in a branch or online. Our new partnership with rediATM has more than doubled the number of fee free ATMs available to customers, and changes to other ATM networks to remove fees will expand this even further. We’re also focused on improving the experience across origination and servicing of small business and home loans.

What are you looking forward to most in continuing as Suncorp’s Head of Bank Intermediaries?
I’m really happy with what we’ve achieved throughout the last ten months since I’ve been in the role. I’m energised by the people around me and the industry’s passion for helping customers get great outcomes. I’m also thrilled to now be permanently in this role. As a business, we’ve got some exciting initiatives planned for 2018 for brokers that are designed to help them work better within their own business, as well as some innovative ideas that will help them work better with their customers. Watch this space!