Joshua Funder
Household Capital is delighted to have ranked #2 in the AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies awards, in the Banking, Superannuation & Financial Services Industry. The specialist retirement funding provider came second to global finance giant, Visa.
The entry from Household Capital focused on its CX2.0, a redesigned customer experience software designed to deliver older Australians awareness and understanding of their home equity and how it can be used – alongside any superannuation and pension entitlements – to enhance their retirement lifestyle.
“A house is not just housing, it can also provide ‘funding for life’. That’s the central tenet of Household Capital’s Customer Experience 2.0 technology. It allows customers to access scenarios showing how much they can get from their home equity, how much they can access now and how much they could access in the future. That’s coupled with purpose-based lending, for things like renovating a home or funding aged care. “[Customer Experience 2.0] delivers awareness, understanding, access and trust.”
Dr Josh Funder, CEO, Household Capital
One of the questions we were asked as part of the award submission was “To what extent do you think the innovation changed people’s lives?”
Our response was to describe cases where our innovation actually transformed individual customer outcomes – we believe this truly demonstrates our impact. The examples we provided include:
- adding $1,000 per month of reliable, long term income to take a retirement from basic to comfortable
- providing access to capital to cover unexpected expenses
- paying out a mortgage for a 64 year old who lost his job due to COVID
- renovating a home to make it age appropriate for single women who don’t have access to capital or credit
- replacing ageing vehicles, to ensure mobility and access to services
- funding a range of medical needs, in-home care and meeting the high costs of residential aged care.
We’ve been working with an increasing number of financial advisers whose clients need access to capital or an increased retirement income stream. Home equity can be of particular benefit during periods of volatility in financial markets, so investors can minimise their drawdowns on income producing assets impacted by these dislocations.