Josh Daniell

One is that they want to feel like they've got the best rate in the market and the advisor knows the market and can talk to lenders and try to negotiate rates.

The second is one of efficiency.

So I give my application to the advisor and the advisor mushes it into the format required by each lender.

So they do that work rather than me as the client.

Both those two jobs can be done digitally.

They don't need a human to do it.

The third main reason is that some people want advice.

They do actually want to hear about the options, think them through, spar with someone.

That is the area where I think the human relationship is the most sticky.

I think there's a good portion of those customers that don't need it to be a human, especially over time.

But for now, I expect that to be the most sticky part of it.

But we are already seeing, say in New Zealand, digital platforms looking to provide a digital-only service for home loan broking.

So you've got products like Homely or Anti-Up that are already in market doing this, where they are looking to provide that whole end-to-end service as a digital service without humans involved in the client relationship.

Yeah, I think it really depends on the particular area.

And with AI moving so fast, I think it would be possibly the wrong move to try and regulate, given the pace it's all moving.

This might sound a bit rambly, but if you think about a nascent sector like the space sector, one of the advantages in New Zealand is that we've been able to be nimble with that regulation to allow the things that we feel comfortable with.

And with AI, I think we have to be nimble too, because it's very emergent.

The threats, the issues are emergent.

And if we try to regulate, we might just hamper the potential for New Zealanders to use these products or to innovate with them.

So I think it just is a balancing act.