MAB to be at the forefront of AI adoption as company announces new projects

Speaking at the MAB conference on Friday, Lucian Morris, the group’s chief information officer, said the projects would involve AI agents who would talk to customers, understand their needs, help them assess their options and provide a triage process to direct them to an advisor with the information collected or keep them in a “nurture” process.

Morris said: “AI is coming whether we like it or not – which it does – and MAB will need to be at the forefront of this adoption if we are to control it within the mortgage industry.

“We think it could make your life a lot more efficient and help make the customer experience with MAB second to none.” »

How MAB will use AI

Morris said AI has “a huge amount to offer” and if the group could harness it properly, “the results could be a game-changer for all of us.”

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He said it could help with compliance by spotting problems and helping brokers avoid further problems.

Morris said the group’s internal software platform had undergone some improvements on this, which “in some cases… had reduced the failure rate to zero”.

He said MAB was looking to address other issues and rethinking how it would check compliance. He added that there would still be a records audit, but it could be done differently.

Morris added: “For example, what would happen if Platform could tell you that your data was not complete for the type of mortgage you wanted to obtain for your customer?

“What if it could tell you that you didn’t get copies of the documents you need, or that certain documents need to be replaced because they are outdated? And potentially even ask the client for new ones?

“What if the system could encourage you to remember to ask key questions or spot an omission in your suitability letter? »

He said MAB wanted Platform to be what he called a “guardian angel”, meaning it would be present throughout a file, “working with you to ensure the file is compliant until to his submission.

Morris said group CEO Peter Brodnicki had also given a lot of thought to improving the way MAB managed and nurtured leads.

He added: “The nurture journey aims to maintain contact with clients who are not ready for advice and support them until they are. However, we believe we can do much more than that.

“AI gives us the ability to have unique conversations with our customers from the first moment they contact us.”

Support advisors and clients throughout the advice journey

He said AI worked best with a rich data set, and so it was important that MAB advisors engaged with the platform and regularly updated the information.

Morris said the “guardian angel” would go further in helping the client and broker through the advice process, ensuring the client fully understands and the broker can prepare the brief for submission.

“Our goal is to make the broker’s life as efficient as possible and allow you to focus on what you do best, which is providing advice,” Morris added.

He said the MAB team was working on a document categorizer, which they hoped to launch before Christmas.

He said a quarter of the documents were misfiled and that AI would notify a broker if it believed any information had been placed in the wrong place.

There will also be technology to read documents such as bank statements and payslips to determine a customer’s income and budget.

Morris said this would still require a conversation between a broker and their client to clarify details, but would shorten the process.

It will be one of the first projects carried out by MAB next year, Morris said, and it will involve new development teams.

MAB is currently recruiting these teams and they will be formed in January.

Once the document reading project is completed, the team will begin on the “Guardian Angel”.

Morris said: “In the future, might it be possible for some clients to receive advice through an intermediary firm without the involvement of a real adviser?

He said it was “possible”, but that MAB would ensure that the advice involved was “so compelling” and “so complementary” to the client’s experience that the client would choose the intervention of an advisor when the option was presented to him.