Australia and New Zealand Banking Group recently installed the valuation initiation system from Sandstone as a valuation decision-making tool to increase valuation turnaround times and reduce costs. VIS does so by choosing the cheapest valuation method."The Valuation Initiation System is a front end valuation fulfilment and decision making system to decide the most appropriate valuation type," said Frank Connon, general manager valuation management services at Sandstone, developer of the VIS software."All valuation methods can be included from the traditional full valuation, to the more modern and time efficient methods such as desktops and modelled estimates, depending on the risk to accuracy assessment of each loan."A lender's valuation costs and risk are simultaneously reduced by the use of VIS, with the valuation decision type parameters set by the banks own risk profiling, and can be adjusted easily to adapt to changes in the property valuation environment."Tim Martin, mortgages' valuations manager at ANZ, said the new software implementation is to boost productivity by conducting more of the valuation process online."The previous situation was that a staff member would do a loan application and we used an Excel-type tool kit to help decide what valuation should be used, and then manually filled out a valuation request form, and faxed it off to the relevant valuer."What this process allows us to do is that it's a one stop shop for the valuations process."A staff member will go into VIS and type in the details and the valuation policy will be decided."VIS automatically talks to VMS [ANZ's valuation management system used for ordering, completing, reporting and invoicing a residential property request], and the valuers get the request in their queue instantaneously."The ANZ valuation policy is built into VIS, with the policy reviewed constantly from a risk perspective.Martin adds that the feedback received from the bank's sales channels is supportive, due to the ability to track and monitor valuations electronically.Currently ANZ does not use desktop valuations, but it is a method that the bank would be looking into with the current efficiency, and electronic improvements being conducted."Around 55 per cent of current valuations are full valuations, with kerbside, otherwise known as drive by valuations, and also professional valuations for very expensive properties. But these make up a very small percentage."We are looking at something similar to a desktop valuation, but currently that is only being trialled."