The real estate industry could learn a lesson or two on how the banking industry is transitioning itself into a customer-centric sector by harnessing the efficiency and convenience of the digital world.
As banking services evolve in light of a digital future, the real estate industry could learn a lesson or two on how the banking industry is transitioning itself into a customer-centric sector by harnessing the efficiency and convenience of the digital world.
At a recent forum hosted by Urban Land Institute Philippines, key executives of Urban Bank discussed how they are integrating their financial services with the help of digital tools so they could become more customer-driven and presented options that the real estate industry could replicate and fine-tune to make the property development sector more responsive to and anticipate the needs of clients and property seekers.
From product-centric to customer-centric
“The planning needs to change,” remarked Ramon de Vera, head of the Fintech Business Group at Union Bank, on how property firms could strategize their approach to their clients to make their services more customer-oriented. “You have customers that trust you. You serve them on a product basis. You need to change your focus from product-centric to customer-centric.”
In one of the Powerpoint slides that he presented, De Vera showed a mobile application in which all the important concerns that a real estate client might encounter could be efficiently and conveniently addressed by pressing on any of the logos that correspond to those concerns. These include building management, insurance, pest control services, construction and fit-out works, and search listings, among others.
The mobile app could be customized depending on the client’s concerns. By anticipating all the needs and concerns that a real estate customer might have, whether that client is a property seeker or someone who has already bought a unit from the firm, the property firm or any of its authorized real estate agents could immediately respond to the customer’s needs without having to go through a ton of paperwork, which often takes several days — or even weeks – to the ire of the client.
Reimagine the future based on your client’s lifestyle
“Real estate is a physical thing and all about location. But you need to reimagine the future by imagining the lifestyle of the customer,” De Vera told conference participants. He expounded on what Urban Bank’s board chairman, Dr. Justo Ortiz, previously discussed on how the bank went into scenario planning four years ago to imagine what the future would be like in relation to what bank customers might need.
Dr. Ortiz noted during his talk that Union Bank’s transformative journey into the digital realm is anchored on how the financial institution could move forward to the future so that it could provide its customers’ improved products and services efficiently and conveniently. “The present doesn’t bring us to the future, it’s the future that brings us to the present,” he remarked. “We had a vision of the world and we drew our planning on that. Our principal role is trust and that’s what we give to our customers.”
Tokenizations and blockchain technologies
In one of the slides presented during the forum, Union Bank officials noted that the bank itself has already built a successful real estate investment platform and is now extending it to real estate digital security offerings. And because of its capital markets services license that allows it to deal with securities, the bank can handle the issuance of global offerings for global investors. Options like these could be used by property development companies through partnerships with financial institutions so that real estate firms could expand and improve both their services and operations, as well as improve its relationship with their clients and property seekers.
The world will be tokenized, including the real estate industry, noted Dr. Ortiz. In real estate, this tokenization could be in different forms. In terms of blockchain technologies, investment tokenizations could be offered through the following: selling fractional building ownership in tokens; tokenize real estate fund investment in tiers or classes and tokenize capital stacks for real estate refinancing.
A better system for real estate investors
Urban Bank believes that tokenization will bring a new and better system for real estate investment players to interact because it helps create alternative funding resources on a global scale; lowers transaction costs due to low or non-involvement of intermediaries; brings unprecedented speed on transaction settlements; creates an investment structure that not only attracts more capital but creates new sources of funding; and creates new forms of debt and equity offerings.
And because real estate is a physical asset, it is generally more stable in terms of value and quite easy to locate because it’s, well, a physical asset. Real estate properties are also easier to understand compared to other types of assets for those who want to invest their money.
Treating customers in a hyper-customized way
With Union Bank’s digital tools, it aims to give its clients access to different financial places. “We are building all these tools because we want to be customer-centric. The technology is all about the customer. The goal is to treat each customer in a hyper-customized way,” he said. “We need to go digital. Paper-based is getting useless.”
Union Bank’s drive toward a digital future has prompted the bank to create UBX, a Union Bank technology company. It has collaborated with a multitude of enterprises from various sectors to create a digital platform that would allow it to customize its offerings to its clients depending on their needs and preferences.
By presenting Union Bank’s digital strategies to members of the real estate sector who attended the ULI Philippines conference, it hopes to share and exchange ideas on how property development firms could harness digital technology that would make them more customer-centric as they venture into collaborative partnerships with other enterprises from other industries.
The recently concluded ULI Philippines conference was a dedicated summit for technology and innovation in real estate and the built environment with some of the most influential companies and individuals in various sectors. As an explosion in new technologies and marketplaces continue to be developed globally and locally, the forum’s goals are to allow participants to understand the trends impacting the property sector, which is crucial if they want to remain relevant and competitive.
Read our previous journal on the ULI FU/TURE Summit.
