P&N Bank partnered with Sandstone Technology to help deliver a key initiative that forms part of its digital transformation strategy and improves the competitiveness of its digital lending proposition.

By harnessing feedback from their customers and examining the performance of its processes, P&N Bank identified some significant opportunities to transform its customer experience by embracing digital technologies and ways of working.

The bank embarked on a major service re-design of its digital personal loan and credit card application user journeys, with the aim of removing points of friction, improving applicant visibility and transparency and, most importantly, reducing application wait times through improved process efficiency.

In collaboration with the team at Sandstone Technology, P&N Bank identified, scoped, estimated and planned the delivery of over 25 major features to its digital lending origination platform, powered by Sandstone Apply's Application Tracker and LendFast Origination applications.

Removing the friction from the customer experience

These enhancements culminated in an upgraded loan application system for P&N Bank’s customers, which aimed to make the online lending application experience easier to navigate through:

• User interface enhancements, including providing more contextual information, help and tips.
• Improvements to application data capture to ensure that all information required to complete an assessment is provided upfront by the customer and, importantly, mapped to LendFast Origination to use in application processing, streamlining end-to-end processing, removing touch points and reducing rework.
• New error proofing measures via system validation to ensure data accuracy and completeness.
• Product selection support within the application to ensure appropriate product selection based on the needs and objectives of the applicant.
• The ability for applicants to seamlessly switch channels mid-application.
• Digitising the customer application and onboarding process, including applying for a P&N Bank membership, internet banking and e-statements registration.
• Simplifying supporting information requirements.
• Leveraging the benefits of electronic identification.
• Keeping applicants informed of their applications progress using Sandstone’s Application Tracker system.
• A new form editor capability, leveraging Sandstone Apply’s Bank in Control feature, allowing P&N Bank to update application form labels and content easily and quickly, so we can be responsive to future customer feedback.

In collaboration with the team at Sandstone Technology, P&N Bank identified, scoped, estimated and planned the delivery of over 25 major features to its digital lending origination platform, powered by Sandstone Apply and LendFast for application and origination processes.

“LendFast is critical to our success in originating and processing retail loans, and leveraging the relationship with Sandstone to deliver such outstanding success is a case study for that trust.”

Warren Wallis, P&N Group Chief Information Officer

A partnership built on trust

P&N Group Chief Information Officer, Warren Willis, said that listening to customers and internal users to get feedback and being able to turn that into action and change in a timely manner underscored the importance of building mutual trust with our key vendors.

“LendFast is critical to our success in originating and processing retail loans, and leveraging the relationship with Sandstone to deliver such outstanding success is a case study
for that trust,” Warren said.

Sandstone’s Executive GM of Origination, AI & ML, Poli Konstantinidis, added “Our strong partnership with P&N Bank developed over 14 years, has enabled our continued focus
on collaboration, innovation & growth. As a result, together we have provided a solution which not only offers strong functional capabilities across the end-to-end credit origination
journey, but also focuses on an engaging customer experience that will help the bank differentiate itself from its competitors.”

Through the creation of a highly engaging customer experience, conversion rates have increased, application and processing times reduced, and back end banking staff are also
seeing the benefits through a higher level of transparency and automation.

With plans to further enhance the automation and processing capabilities, Sandstone and P&N Bank look forward to a collaborative and rewarding relationship moving forward.

P&N Bank is a division of Police & Nurses Limited, which:

• operates using a customer-owned model;
• is an Approved Deposit Taking Institution (ADI) regulated to the same high standards of security as other banks, by such government agencies as APRA, ASIC, the Reserve Bank of Australia, AUSTRAC and the ACCC; and
• is a member of COBA (Customer Owned Banking Association) and the Business Council of Cooperatives and Mutuals (BCCM).
• P&N Bank was awarded Most Recommended Customer-Owned Bank 2020 DBM Australian Financial Awards*; QBE Mutual/Speciality Lender Award - 2020 MFAA WA State Excellence Awards; Best Mutual 2018 RFI Australian Lending Awards; AIM WA Pinnacle Awards – Innovation Excellence 2018/19; Canstar Innovation Excellence Award 2019.
• P&N Bank has 15 branches in WA and offers a wide range of financial products and services, including home loans, personal loans, term deposits, credit cards, financial planning, insurance and foreign exchange.
• P&N Bank offers all three digital wallets – Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay™.