Property management has historically been plagued by time-consuming manual processes that make tenant onboarding and rent collection cumbersome and prone to errors or delays. With the rising popularity and adoption of Open Finance technologies, the winds are finally changing for the property management industry.
How Open Finance streamlines tenant evaluation and onboarding
Before Open Finance took root, property managers had to complete manual onboarding and tenant solvency risk analyses. The manual approach involved collecting and organizing numerous documents and bank statements just to begin the evaluation process. To add to the challenge, falsifications often cannot be identified during manual solvency reviews.
Property managers can eliminate the laborious manual component entirely when they give tenants the option to share their data via Open Finance technologies. With Open Finance, customers only need to grant reading access to their bank statements to automatically provide property managers with their financial information.
Unnax’s Open Finance technology improves tenant evaluation and onboarding by:
- Increasing efficiency and reducing manual effort in onboarding and evaluation
- Reducing the risk of fraud
- Improving tenant solvency analysis
With Unnax’s technology, merchants can access up to 90 days of a tenant’s bank account history, once consent is given. This enables property managers to quickly evaluate the tenant’s key financial details, such as:
- Salary and income
- Current debts
- Recurring expenses
Based on that data, property managers are also able to instantly calculate important financial indicators like:
- Rent-to-income ratio
- Debt index
- Gambling index
Collecting financial information in this way brings much greater efficiency and accuracy to the risk analysis process. By understanding a tenant’s spending habits and debt obligations, managers can more accurately predict the likelihood of consistent, on-time rent payments and reduce the risk of defaults. From the tenant’s perspective, connecting bank accounts via Open Finance can also speed up the evaluation process, leading to quicker onboarding and a higher chance of securing the property for which they applied.
Simplifying fraud prevention for property managers
Fraud prevention is a vital component of the rental process. Property managers must be certain that a bank account belongs to the tenant who entered the credentials before they can begin charging the account.
Unnax’s technology addresses the challenge of fraud prevention through its account ownership verification solution. Property managers can check that a specific account belongs to the correct person with just their document number, DNI/NIE or passport, and the account number. For tenants who have already given consent and connected their bank accounts with the rental platform during the onboarding process, property managers can also just use that existing Open Banking connection to verify ownership.
Account ownership verification also helps to simplify fraud prevention when tenants switch payment accounts. When a tenant makes the switch, managers can use the solution to more easily verify that the new payment account belongs to the same person.
Accelerating rent collection and reducing late or missed payments
Unnax offers streamlined payment methods that greatly limit missed or late payments and make the entire rent collection process easier for property managers.
One option is SEPA direct debits, in which tenants sign a mandate authorizing collection on a specific account in a recurrent way. When the date arrives each month, the funds automatically come out of the tenant’s account and into the property manager’s Unnax account.
Account-to-account (A2A) payments are another popular option. Property managers can send payment links to tenants, eliminating the possibility of error by entering the exact amount due within the link. A2A payments can also help with the collection of late or partial rent payments. For example, if a tenant only paid €900 of their €1,000 monthly payment, an A2A link could be sent for the remaining funds.
Unnax recommends a combination of both payment methods for maximum efficiency. SEPA DDs are best for automated and on-time recurring payments, while A2A is better suited for sending reminders or requesting a specific amount of funds (such as a partial rent payment).
For automated reminders, property managers can generate a payment link through the Unnax platform and share it directly with tenants as part of scheduled reminders.
Unnax’s solutions also automate the reconciliation process. As a result, property managers can reduce the amount of manual reconciliation needed from their accounting teams and enable real-time tracking, making monitoring tenant payments a more straightforward process.
Which Unnax products do property managers need?
The core Unnax solutions that streamline property management begin with bank account aggregation. This enables property managers to instantly access and analyze key financial indicators from tenant bank data, making solvency checks faster, more reliable, and fraud-resistant.
Alongside aggregation, Unnax also offers essential operational tools such as:
- Account ownership verification: Ensures the tenant is the legitimate owner of a specific bank account.
- AML/KYC checks: Verifies the identity and trustworthiness of tenants to meet compliance requirements.
- IBAN accounts: Used to receive and manage rent payouts securely and efficiently.
- Payment solutions: Enables collection of recurring monthly rent via SEPA direct debits and supports individual payments through A2A payment links – both equipped with automated reconciliation to reduce accounting workload.
While Unnax itself does not own or store the financial data collected by property managers from tenants, all Unnax products are fully compliant with all regulations, including GDPR and PSD2.
Additionally, since Unnax is an API-based solution, each property manager can set up their own dashboard and integrate whatever extra software they may need, such as CRMs or ERPs.
Alquiler Seguro’s account aggregation success story
Unnax has a proven track record of helping property management businesses improve their operations.
One such company is Alquiler Seguro, a Spanish rental intermediary between landlords and tenants. With Unnax’s account aggregation solution, Alquiler Seguro achieved a highly efficient risk-scoring process that reduces the time they spend analyzing potential tenants and has increased overall conversion rates.
Since partnering with Unnax, Alquiler Seguro has even won an award for the best real estate innovation in predictive risk analysis from Premios Fotocasa Pro.
👉 You may also like the following use case: How Unibo Leveraged Unnax IBAN Accounts to Achieve 15X Growth in Just One Year
The future is now for property managers to try Open Finance
Open Finance technologies present property managers with excellent opportunities for increasing the efficiency of their operations and reducing reliance on manual processes.
Speak with Unnax today to learn more about our solutions for property management, including streamlined tenant onboarding and rent collection.
