Steven Meek | FinTech Magazine

You can get a measure of a man from the way he describes his work. When Pepper Money CIO Steven Meek speaks to us from the firm’s state-of-the-art headquarters in Sydney, it’s well past the end of the working day. Still, Meek is full of enthusiasm for his role, describing it as an honor, not a calling.

“It’s brilliant,” he says. “I feel privileged to lead a very talented team working on digital transformation, data and analytics, and core technology services and solutions. I have been fortunate throughout my career to have worked in multiple industries, from IT services and consumer goods to investment banking , and helped all the businesses I’ve worked for through periods of major change.”

Founded in 2000, Pepper Money began with mortgages, focusing on customers who couldn’t access finance through traditional means – they may have an imperfect credit history, unpredictable income patterns or a life event that changed their financial circumstances. Over two decades, it has expanded its lending solutions with new propositions spanning residential, automotive, electric vehicle (EV), equipment, capital financing, commercial real estate and personal loans.

“As a company, we have industry-leading turnaround times, innovative technology that has been established over many years, and a team of more than 1,000 people that has helped 327,000 customers from all walks of life,” says Meek. “We are now one of the largest and most trusted non-bank lenders in Australia and New Zealand.”

The established off-the-shelf solutions did not work

To some extent, Pepper Money has avoided some of the legacy issues plaguing existing lenders. Today, 90% of digital architecture flows through cloud and SaaS platforms, ensuring it strikes a balance between resilience, agility and cost-effectiveness.

“Our digitization journey took off in 2018 when it was clear that we were facing an increasingly digital and competitive market,” says Meek. “We recognized early on that our established off-the-shelf lending solutions needed a reassessment. We made the decision in 2019 to shift to composable, low-code digital platforms to rapidly transform our origination channels and increase the level of innovation across the employee and customer experience.”

Pepper Money partnered with Appian to completely reimagine its digital architecture. The origination asset finance platform it built, Solana, has driven a 70% increase in business volumes and brings Pepper’s proprietary credit decision-making capabilities to the fore, using AI-powered analytics to provide on-the-spot approval for a customer.

The benefits of low-code platforms are four-fold: low-code builders allow companies to reduce their speed to market; provide seamless integration with existing infrastructure; and, in the case of Appian, offer pre-built workflows so Pepper Money doesn’t have to build from scratch. It will also allow Pepper to improve talent resilience, empowering teams across the enterprise to build applications, workflows and processes in minutes.”

Innovation at the heart of Pepper Money’s culture

In today’s world, where both consumers and businesses have to deal with rising costs, lenders have a more important role than ever. Innovation is essential if lenders like Pepper Money are to keep pace with customers’ needs.

Meek explains: “Like many economies around the world, the combined effect of rising inflation and rising interest rates means our clients, brokers and introducers are facing a period of uncertainty.”

Pepper Money supports its customers with fast processing times and flexible loan options. As an example, on average, 85% of mortgage applications are approved in less than one day, and 42% of equity financing loans are auto-approved – and the lender continues to invest in technology innovations to further improve these experiences. “Intelligent document scanning, digital signatures, biometrics, automated valuations, digital income verification and things like AI-powered analytics for our credit ratings will continue to enable us to evolve our products and serve customers into the future,” says Meek.

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