You co-founded Oper in 2018. What were you doing before that?
I studied business and IT at the universities of Antwerp and Vienna. After a short stint in the world of ERP systems and SAP, I joined a startup that builds software for financial services, which got me excited, because I love building things. Working at this startup, I started working with banks, implementing complex technology solutions for them. As we were working on a lot of topics in the lending domain, I acquired a lot of domain knowledge quickly. At the same time, I sat in the front row of how a business was build. After the startup got acquired, I joined a large management consultancy, working on digitization projects and again helping banks upgrade their technology. Working more on advice, I discovered the immense opportunity that financial technology would bring to this industry. However, the speed at which we were bringing change on the inside wasn’t equaling my patience of how fast I wanted it to change. One day, driving home from a client, I realized that if I wanted to change that dynamic the best way would be to build something myself. That inflection point led to the start of my entrepreneurial journey.

What led you to digital mortgages?
Working with banks and thinking through the challenges of digitization, I saw a huge wave coming, in terms of how banks should think about moving from analog to digital when selling their services. My co-founders and I saw that buying a house and getting a mortgage is a very high-trust product. Many experts had said that it should be digitized but had not figured out how to. We saw patterns that suggested how it could work. We identified that moving from a branch-based approach to a digital-based, there was a need for a different technology. We believed that our solution could allow lenders jump that gap. That became the genesis of Oper.

What problem did you set out to solve?
The problem is twofold. On the one hand, the consumer today feels discomfort when buying a house and getting it financed. You can have five PhDs, but still feel quite upset about the whole process. You don’t know what you can afford and need to speak to the bank. We noticed that, as banks reduce their number of branches, you have to go through this process with people you no longer know. On the other hand, banks have not yet figured out how distribute a very high-trust product, such as a mortgage. Our product gives them a tool that they can plug into their website and app that pulls in clients, making them feel secure on that journey.

What solution does Oper offer?
We offer a B2B white-labelled software solution. We learned that, for B2C, we would have to develop the trust and the brand, which is very difficult to do, especially for mortgages. You see all the B2C companies struggling with the trust issue. We offer B2B; our clients are typically lenders or mortgage brokers that use our solution in a white-labelled way. You never see the Oper logo; we give them the toolkit to provide a better service to their clients.

The term “one-click mortgage” is sometimes used in the context of the digitization of the mortgage market. Is a one-click mortgage actually possible, or just an expression?
The “one-click mortgage” is of course a bit of an oversimplification. This is how we see it: we believe that we can make a perfect profile of you, including the properties you are looking at and your financial situation. We can then coach you towards being able to acquire a specific property. If we can do all that preparatory work, the platform can say: just go for it, make that offer. This is what we mean by a “one-click mortgage”. It is not like buying a phone online, where you just click and have it.

What role does data play in all of this?
A huge role. We are a firm believer that, already today, you can use all the data available to provide a real-time mortgage approval and quote. Today, much of the data used to issue a mortgage decision is on paper, in documents, in PDFs. We believe that digitization will bring it into the API, enabling real-time mortgages.

What potential do you see in the new generation of homebuyers accustomed to digital financial products?
The fact that consumers are increasingly ready act in a digital way is a growth opportunity for us. Our research shows that the adoption of banking services is not necessarily linked to age, though. Other demographic factors affect it. It is less about age and more about specific behaviors that will lead to more digital adoption. Across Europe, we see that clients are starting their mortgage journey online. In almost every case, they start looking for the best offer and go for the platforms that respond to their needs the fastest. This is only going to accelerate in the coming months and years.

Do you think the pandemic has had an impact here?
Absolutely. The pandemic has really made a broader group of consumers ready to consume services digitally. Banks do 50% of their conversations with clients through virtual channels. Another area of change has been the rise of e-signatures; digital signatures for documentation. My parents now use DocuSign, which I think is really because of the pandemic. Overall, the banks have become readier to engage, the regulator has allowed more, and the consumers are readier to consume services through digital channels.

Where are your clients based?
Our most active markets are Belgium, Switzerland and Austria. We are launching now in Central and Eastern Europe, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We serve mortgage distributors in these countries, a combination of banks and large mortgage broker groups that use us for mortgage advice.

What are the efficiency gains for your clients?
We measure two data points. Firstly, the increase in volume. Today, we have reached 20% increases in our clients’ volume; that is, volume increased because of Oper, not because of the market. Secondly, if you look at efficiency, we reduce 40% of all the time to-yes because we can be much more effective in allowing communication between borrower and lender. These are the two key metrics we measure today; in every country, the efficiency gains will be different.

What is your business model?
Software as a service (SaaS). We charge a monthly subscription fee for using our system and we have a volume-based fee. A client effectively repays us per mortgage issued, so if they are successful, we are successful.

What sets you apart from your competitors?
We have built considerable expertise and know-how into our software. We see many lenders across Europe struggling when it comes to digitizing processes. They have a lot of questions. Typically, they would ask a consulting company, but all this expertise has been built into our software. If you choose Oper, our solution issues a new update every six weeks, with all that we have learned. We are really a one-stop shop that provides the best digital mortgage experience across Europe. We have built a whole team of people who wake up in the morning focused on just one thing: how to offer borrowers a better and more transparent mortgage experience.

And this is cheaper than hiring a company to build everything from scratch?
It is both cheaper and faster, and I think the quality is higher.

Is Oper’s solution easy to scale to different markets?
If it were really easy, everyone would be doing it. It is challenging, but we are helped by EU regulations, which harmonize things. This makes it easier to go from country A to country B. Our thesis is that this harmonization will continue, enabling us to scale further across Europe.

The Constructive Venture Fund is one of your investors. Were they able to help you with their network?
Yes. They are linked to a few institutions that are extremely relevant for us. The good thing about the Constructive Venture Fund is that they always make sure the door is open, with their corporate partners and investment base. The team has been extremely helpful, with everything from answers our questions to making introductions and benchmarking new ideas.

What are your priorities for Oper for the year ahead?
In 2021, we did 1 billion euros in mortgages. The target this year is to bring that to 4 billion, which means doing a lot more volume with our clients. Our second priority is to expand further to different countries and to really validate the thesis that this can run with one code base in multiple countries. These are our two priorities for the next twelve months, because that will prove that we are a sustainable and scalable business.