William Schmidt
General Manager, humm
“With Open Banking and customer trust, we can have a more transparent and fair interaction with our customers, both at origination and through repayments.”
What role does customer trust play in consumer lending, and for the relationship with your consumers in particular?
At humm, we see trust as the outcome, which will only occur when we can apply empathy to our customer interactions at the moments they need us most. At humm we are seeking to play the long game and the goal is to continue to build mutual trust at each interaction in their journey and across many transactions in a year/lifetime.
We will know a customer trust (loves) us when they continue to choose humm when they buy the things they love, or pay a bill. If we continue to be fair, transparent and give our customers control with their BNPL purchases, the trust will come.
What are the most important pain points in the consumer lending customer journey?
The two most critical points within our customer’s journey is at origination (how much credit we provide) and at repayment (instalments).
The first requires a mixture of data and trust that ensures we provide the customer with a line of credit that fits their context/expectations; While the latter requires data and empathy that ensures the customer has the tools and control to manage their repayments in line with their ever-changing financial context.
How do you think Open Banking can help improve the user experience in consumer lending?
Today, we capture very basic data about our customers and use transactions over time to grow our understanding of our customers; this process is inefficient and in a digital format can feel inhuman. With Open Banking and customer trust, we can have a more transparent and fair interaction without customers, both at origination and through repayments.
In practical terms, we can forecast issues, then use this data to ensure they never pay late fees or give them tools to extend their terms on purchase to accommodate for unforeseen costs.
