Dutch magazine Banking Review has honored Hypoport Stater B.V. with its Innovation Award 2008 for the launch of the EUROPACE platform on the Dutch market. The prize is awarded each year in recognition of the most innovative concept in the financial services sector.
Hypoport Stater B.V. convinced the jury with its introduction of the first independent transaction platform "to bring together all of the players in the mortgage market, without them having to first integrate the complex software into their system architectures". Its state of the art technology increased market transparency and was, moreover, easy to operate, allowing market players to interact more efficiently. EUROPACE thus enhanced the flexibility and ensured the sustainability of the system, offering a solution that responded to market demands. The individual risk-based pricing system used by EUROPACE "offered clear advantages over the conventional evaluation of loan terms based on average risk profiles", according to the jury. The transaction-dependent business model offered platform users the opportunity to enter the market at low risk. For this reason, the jury was convinced that the pricing model developed by EUROPACE "offers an interesting and proven concept that is extremely innovative in the Netherlands".
The EUROPACE platform for the German real estate market was launched in 2002. Following its successful establishment, the concept was expanded in 2004 to include private loans. Nowadays, EUROPACE is the leading and Germany's only independent transaction platform for financial services vendors, banks and insurance companies. The figures prove it: Last year, transaction volume increased by more than 18 percent to its current level of EUR 14.622 billion in spite of a generally stagnating market. Some 12 percent of all financing transactions on the German real estate market are processed on EUROPACE. The share of financing deals in the growth segment of independent financial services vendors has even topped the 30 percent mark. Its flexible architecture allows the platform to modularly expand the wide range of existing financial services products on offer. In addition to incorporating new requirements for the range of EUROPACE products, the software development division at Hypoport AG is also constantly striving to offer the flexibility demanded by the market in implementing changes.
In the Netherlands, the EUROPACE platform was adapted to the specific partner and product characteristics of the Dutch market. A financing process in the Netherlands generally involves more parties than is the case in Germany. Packagers, for example, are a fixed institution, whereas they are only slowly gaining in importance in Germany. Annuity loans play a very important role in Germany, whereas these products are virtually non-existent in the Netherlands since interest charges on mortgages are tax deductible. Its modular concept ensures the optimal implementation of such differing requirements for the process structure of the platform. EUROPACE has attracted its first sales partners for the platform in the Netherlands. Christian Fein, Managing Director of Hypoport Stater B.V.: "I am convinced that EUROPACE will occupy a similarly leading position in the Dutch market in light of this external recognition and the success it has demonstrated in Germany".
Source: Hypoport
