Westpac Feedback Session

[TJ]

Today, Westpac is hosting a feedback session here on Community to improve the settlement experience and discuss issues important to the industry. 

This is a great opportunity for members to share their tips on what Westpac can work on and the things you've come across that you really appreciated while working with the Westpac team and other Financial Institutions. 

The team from Westpac are online, ready to answer questions and respond to your feedback for the next hour. Just comment below.

[LawyersConveyancing]

In a purchase matter, where there are no banks involved, it is possible to have a PEXA workspace in 'READY, READY' mode (i.e. both the Lodgement workflow and the Financial Settlement workflow in the PEXA workspace have reached the stage where settlement is ready to take place) the day before settlement and often a number of days before settlement.

Where the purchaser has a bank involved the 'READY, READY' state is never achieved before the actual day of settlement, requiring my conveyancers to be at their desks and watching their screens until 'READY, READY' is achieved.

Before PEXA my conveyancers would have settlement packets ready, at the latest, by Thursday afternoon for a Friday settlement, and the packets would be sent by DX to our city settlement agents. Wesptac, along with other banks, was able to get its act together so as to allow the settlement to be READY the day before settlement, and sometimes earlier than that, whereas now Westpac appears unable to match its efficiencies of the past, and consequently neither can we.

QUESTION: Is Westpac prepared to suggest a date by which it will be able to have a PEXA settlement at the 'READY, READY' stage no later than 24 hours before settlement day? If not, then why not?

Peter Mericka

Lawyers Conveyancing

[HelenW]

Hi everyone, and welcome to the feedback session for Westpac! We have a team of experts waiting to answer your questions and hear your feedback, looking forward to hearing from you all!

[GraceChallengeSettlements]

Hi Westpac,

Are you told what your adherence is to the Transfer Guidelines? And if so, what do you do with that information? 

[gmunday]

Hi Peter,

We agree that being ready as early as possible is important. As the incoming mortgagee we are reliant on varying factors, including payout figures from the outgoing mortgagee along with Vendor funds, internal clearing debts and client contribution. We can only sign off when all of these items are in place. We are happy to raise this as an opportunity at the banking operational forum for discussion with other financial institutions. @LawyersConveyancing 

[TJ]

Love to get everyone's input:

@goolwaconveyancing, @DMc, @BGoodwin, @LawyersConveyancing, @jgusew, @DMc, @Clara, @CourtneyFitzgerald, @BytheBay, @Karolidis_and_Co, @SimoneC, @Caz_at_Astills, @PaulaMain, @cstewart

[Adam]

Hi Westpac!

Often practitioners find they need urgent action in workspaces in order to settle on time.  Conversations are not always read in a timely manner.  What is the best way to raise the attention of the Westpac settlement team when something is urgent?  Should practitioners call?

[HelenW]

Absolutely! We receive the information weekly, which enables us to do a review where we have met the guidelines and importantly where we haven't. Where we haven't we review why this has occurred and identify improvements to lift adherence to guidelines. As an example,  responses to our mortgagee on title conversations is 98% due to changes we made to our queues and workflow.

@GraceChallengeSettlements 

[SimoneF]

Westpac is committed to receiving feedback from practitioners and is using Medallia to gather that feedback. We follow up with practitioners with a phone call in many cases. What are your thoughts on how to gather feedback from you?

[georgiacahill94]

Hi @Adam 

Great question! If there is something urgent preventing settlement on the day of, please absolutely feel free to give us a call. If the matter is brought to our attention the day before settlement, we will be able to action your conversation in a timely manner.

Meeting customer settlement times is extremely important to us at Westpac, so, if in doubt, please reach out!

[LawyersConveyancing]

With the greatest of respect Gemma, your reply can be paraphrased as 'We can't sign off until we're ready'. My observation is that you were able to be ready days before settlement prior to PEXA, so why can't you be ready at least as early now that you have all of the time and energy saving efficiencies of PEXA working for you?

Peter Mericka

Lawyers Conveyancing

[TheDoctor]

Hi all,

We'd love your ideas on how to improve communication between Banks & Practitioners.

We commonly use PEXA Conversations to communicate.

Is this the most suitable methods, do you have any alternatives or preferences.

[J_GAV]

Hi Westpac, what does Westpac need from practitioners to ensure they can complete their tasks in time for settlement?

[LawyersConveyancing]

I agree @TheDoctor, the conversations are a great way to communicate. An improvement I would like to see is for Westpac and others to be more prompt in their responses. I think this communication would be greatly improved if the emails we receive from PEXA telling us that there is a new message in conversations could include the actual message. We regularly forward messages from banks to our clients, and this would allow us to simply hit the 'Forward' button to our client so that we don't have to go into PEXA to read it.

An example is where Westpac tell us that they have not yet received the client's Discharge of Mortgage form. This is not our problem, it is an issue between Westpac and its borrower, so we currently copy, paste and send. So much easier if we can just forward it, adding a message that the client should follow up with the loan manager to whom the DM had been delivered 3 weeks earlier.

Peter Mericka

Lawyers Conveyancing

[LawyersConveyancing]

Hey @J_GAV , That very question is the start of the problems practitioners are now facing with banks giving long lists of tasks that practitioners have to fulfill before settlement can take place. It's how the banks (not necessarily Westpac) exploit us and extort free services from us.

A better question would be, "Would you like me to tell you how Westpac can assist us practitioners?"

Peter Mericka

Lawyers Conveyancing

[gmunday]

Hi Peter @LawyersConveyancing 

We're absolutely committed to preparing as early as possible in paper and electronically - at the moment more than 75% of settlements we complete are electronic so it's really important to us. PEXA provides all involved in settlement with visibility that previously didn't exist in paper - at times this may cause some angst as we all adjust to late changes to enable a settlement to occur. It also enables us to react to challenges that previously would have been seen at the settlement (eg: name differences between mortgage and transfer) and rectify prior to settlement. 

We're keen to understand more about your experience so we will set up some time to discuss in further detail. 

[HelenW]

Hi @LawyersConveyancing-thanks for the feedback in regards to the discharge authority. We will review our process with a view to improve. We will share any future changes within the PEXA community.

[AvinaAl]

@LawyersConveyancing 

Thank you, Peter, for your suggestion on enhancing the PEXA email notifications. That's a great idea. We will take that back internally for exploration and prioritisation.  

[LawyersConveyancing]

Again, and with respect @gmunday , I would much prefer it if Westpac could take pride in having 75% of its settlements in 'READY, READY' mode no later than 24 hours before settlement. All the visibility, transparency etc. etc. is not worth a cracker as compared to 'READY, READY' 24 hours or more before settlement.

I would go so far as to say that PEXA, and not just Westpac, can  be seen as a failure because of this drawback alone!

Peter Mericka

Lawyers Conveyancing

[MattKerr1]

thanks @J_GAV

for Westpac to be ready for settlement as early as possible the main items we need are the big ticket items in the transfer guidelines.

- prepared transfer to ensure our docs can be signed and verified

- total funds required to settle

- adjustments agreed and confirmed as early as possible

- figures not to be altered on day of settlement

I've included the link to our Electronic Settlements info.

https://community.pexa.com.au/t5/Help-Centre/Westpac-Electronic-Settlements-Information/ba-p/7255?ad...

[RogersLegal]

Hello Westpac, 

I have had relatively good experiences with Westpac to date. Can you please give some examples of how you are actioning previous feedback from the market?  

[gmunday]

Hi Peter @LawyersConveyancing 

Thanks for your feedback.

Gemma

[DMc]

Would indicators/check boxes of the usual FAQ's and amounts and or templates of usual Conversations be used by Westpac if it resulted in a lower number of conversations?

As posted elsewhere;

"Some additional feedback around the currently limited flexibility of conversations would be to add more Practitioner and Lender 'Quick Indicators' much like the Checklist ie Authority Documents Sent/Received currently in use.

Things like;

• "Indicative" or "Confirmed" boxes next to the 'Total Funds Required To Settle' (TFRTS)
•     Plus additional box for 'includes Discharge and New Mortgage Rego fees' (WA issue - identified in the Symposium)
• Incoming Lender holds Equity up to a total {AMOUNT}.
• Outgoing Lender needs to collect minimum {AMOUNT}
•     Plus"Indicative"/"Confirmed"
•     Plus a Tick box for 'Surplus Funds are accepted'?

Another improvement to the Conversations tool would be able to 'select from a User specified regular template' or 'Type into Other' text box directly as we need to get the message down BEFORE going through the rigmarole of options and forgetting what was intended to be communicated."

[williamtrieu]

Hi, so glad to hear you've had some good experiences We love to be active in the practitioner community, and regularly visit and meet with solicitors and conveyancers in their offices or at industry events. A couple of examples are the direct phone line we've implemented in our operations team. We had some feedback that Conversations weren't always fast enough, so we took action and made ourselves available instantly. We also received feedback that practitioners didn't know if we had received a discharge or loan documents via PEXA, so we changed our process to ensure tickboxes were used indicating documents received. @RogersLegal 

[salenawilliams]

Hi @DMc 

Those are some great suggestions for enhancements to the PEXA platform. We are constantly looking for new ways to improve user experience. I'll take this feedback back to our team to discuss and explore.

Thanks

[LawyersConveyancing]

My takehome suggestion for Westpac today is that in order to become the leading bank in PEXA, and the sweetheart of practitioners nationally, Westpac should place itself so as to be able to proudly proclaim, "Westpac will have your PEXA settlement in 'READY, READY' mode no later than 24 hours prior to settlement."

Peter Mericka

Lawyers Conveyancing

[MattKerr1]

Thank you everyone for your input and feedback in today's session.

Although the session is no longer live we will review all comments that come through the thread from todays discussion.

We will share our responses and how we are further changing to become a more responsive Bank in the industry.

Please join us for the St George, Bank SA, Bank of Melbourne and Rams Session on the 15th of May 

[salenawilliams]

Hi @DMc 

I've just been told we are looking at including several of those enhancements (or similar to) into the November release - stay tuned! 

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[DMc]

Thanks for listening Teams Westpac & PEXA.

Keep up the good work, Hopefully, able to meet at the next WA Banking/Industry symposium?!!?

I'll await my invite...

[TheDoctor]

Hi all,

Just a bump  for this.

Please add any more questions.

We will continue to monitor this thread and attempt to answer any queries.