Almost half of letting agents are feeling optimistic about the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools across the industry, research from Vouch and Goodlord reveals.
Just under half (45%) of letting agents think that AI tools such as ChatGPT will help them in the future with four out of 10 (39%) feeling neutral about the topic of AI, saying they neither agree nor disagree with the statement that ‘AI tools will prove beneficial going forward’.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
Seven out of 10 (70%) agents said they believed lettings professionals were open to the adoption of new technology with six out of 10 (60%) believing that the lettings industry should use technology more to improve the customer experience.
However, the Vouch and Goodlord survey also revealed an education gap – especially around ‘renttech’ terms.
More than eight out of 10 (83%) agents said they weren’t familiar or were only somewhat familiar with the term ‘Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Technology’ – the process of converting an image of text – such as bank statements – into a format that is machine readable.
And only a quarter (24%) of agents were familiar with the term ‘Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT)’ – a way of authenticating documents which agencies have been allowed to do since 2022.
OPEN BANKING
The term that ranked highest for familiarity was ‘Open Banking’ – the technology used to safely verify income and confirm the financial security of prospective tenants – with just under half (46%) of agents familiar with only 16% unfamiliar.
Frankie Malpass, Product Lead at Vouch, says: “AI is here to stay – whether you’re using renttech providers that check IDs for facial recognition, writing marketing ads with the help of ChatGPT, or using AI-led tools to do 360-degree virtual tours.
“The trick for the future is how to use AI to your advantage.
“It’s therefore great to see just how many letting agents are feeling positive about the advent of everyday AI and are open to adopting new technologies.”
Just three in 10 estate agents use open banking to verify their clients’ funds – despite it being one of the most secure ways to provide secure third-party access to financial data through an API (application programming interface).
The Proceeds of Crime Act requires regulated firms to submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) to the National Crime Agency (NCA) if they believe that someone is trying to clean dirty money earned from the proceeds of crime.
VERIFY SOURCE
But new data released from SmartSearch also reveals that in total seven out of 10 (73%) of regulated firms are failing to adopt open banking – or even verify source of funds manually.
Nearly a quarter (24%) of respondents said they use a combination of manual review and open banking services.
In the property industry, 72% of respondents don’t use open banking for automatic verification, while one in five (20%) fail to verify the source of funds at all.
Almost three quarters (70%) of accountants said they don’t use open banking for source of funds verification. 19% don’t verify the source of funds at all.
Figures for 200 compliance decision-makers in financial services are no better, with 74% of people not using open banking services to verify the source of funds when onboarding new individual clients and businesses. Only four out of five (80%) verify the source of funds, with 30% manually reviewing bank statements.
OPEN BANKING
Three quarters (75%) of compliance decision-makers in the legal sector said they do not verify sources of funds using open banking. And a quarter (26%) admitted to not checking the source of funds, even manually – which 28% of people said they did.
Fraser Mitchell (main picture), Technical Director of SmartSearch, says: “It’s surprising that regulated firms aren’t faster to adopt open banking, which would really speed up their compliance processes and help secure their business.”
And Collette Allen, Chief Operating Officer at SmartSearch, adds: “It’s concerning that so many firms aren’t checking bank accounts even manually.
“This is a high-risk approach, which could potentially put some of them in contravention of UK anti-money laundering laws.”