When incumbents start selling fear, it’s usually because they’ve run out of innovation

All very convincing at a glance. But it’s worth asking a simple question.

Why now?

Before we go any further, it’s worth asking what “trustless” actually means. It’s a relatively new label that has crept into the narrative as agencies begin exploring automated payment models that don’t rely on traditional trust accounting.

Unfortunately, rather than clarifying the technology, the term has often been hijacked to create uncertainty and make an already complex topic even harder for agencies to understand.

Let’s be clear: automated direct payments challenge the traditional trust accounting model upon which many legacy platforms were built.

But if the concerns of legacy trust accounting tech are genuinely about protecting agencies, why has this narrative only become louder now?

Managed pioneered new payments technology eight years ago, but it was completely ignored by the incumbents. So it’s worth questioning the fearmongering now reaching fever pitch?

History tells us that when markets change, incumbents rarely welcome disruption. More often, they try to slow it down when they realise they can’t compete. And when that fails, one of the oldest tricks in the book is to sow the seeds of fear and doubt. If customers become uncertain enough, they’ll often stay exactly where they are – rusted onto old software and old ways of working.

Software providers understand that changing property management systems is one of the biggest decisions an agency can make. When uncertainty is introduced, even agencies that know change is necessary often choose to delay the decision altogether. Fear doesn’t have to convince people to stay forever. It simply has to persuade them not to move today.

New agencies, however, are actively looking for competitive advantages, and increasingly they see automated payments and a stronger owner proposition as genuine points of differentiation. They are looking for an improvement on cumbersome legacy tech and the poor support that it is often packaged with.

The lagging legacy

For decades, trust accounting software was the epicentre of the property management universe. It was complex, highly specialised, and difficult to challenge. Building credible alternatives required enormous investment, large engineering teams, and years of development – or a genuinely different way of solving the problem.

That world has changed.

Today’s technology landscape is different. Great software is no longer defined by the size of an engineering team or the depth of a company’s balance sheet. It’s defined by how effectively it solves customer problems through understanding the real estate landscape. The agencies winning in property management today aren’t looking for more complexity from their tech stack; they demand less.

A new generation of agencies wants to offer customers the same modern payments tech for their investment property that they are used to in every other facet of their life. This is the cutting edge of real estate, and momentum is building.

Next-generation agencies believe in automation over administration, transparency above workarounds and differentiation instead of conformity. The challenge legacy platforms face is that they remain fundamentally built around trust accounting and the processes that support it.

Papering over the cracks

Rather than reimagining the way payments and property management can work together, much of the software old guard has responded with expensive bolt-ons, half-built payment functionality layered over trust accounting, or more curiously, by offering to operate trust accounts on behalf of agencies – for a fee.

There is a simple commercial reason for this strategy. Acknowledging genuine innovation from a challenger means acknowledging that the market has changed.

For a while, that narrative may work.

So, when agencies start asking serious questions about innovation in payments, one response is to amplify the risks of looking elsewhere. Fear has always been an effective way to slow change.

Mind the gap

Property management is changing. Today’s next-generation agencies think differently. They’re becoming asset managers, not simply property managers. They focus relentlessly on creating value for owners because they recognise opportunities that slower-moving competitors have missed.

These agencies are growing because they embrace change while it’s happening – not after it has happened.

The real competitive advantage for technology platforms today isn’t simply building software. It’s understanding how agencies can grow faster, operate more efficiently and create a genuine competitive advantage. It is about providing the tech and the support that is needed to win.

One size no longer fits all. If growth is your objective, ask yourself some simple questions:

• What tangible advantages can you deliver to your owners and renters that your competitors can’t?
• How does your technology platform specifically help deliver that advantage?
• Why does your software provider spend more time explaining why you shouldn’t look at new payments technology than justifying why they aren’t moving with the times?

Every technology decision deserves careful scrutiny. Agencies should absolutely ask hard questions about security, compliance and operational risk. But they should ask those same questions of the companies that are warning and what their motives are. Understand where genuine risk ends and commercial self-interest begins, because the loudest voices resisting change are not always the ones with the best answers. Sometimes they’re simply the ones with the most to lose.

Alex Whitock is co-founder and director at Managed (www.managedapp.com.au).