The Future of Mortgage Lending Technology: Insights from MBA Annual 2022

Technology can make many aspects of the mortgage business more efficient, cost-effective, and convenient for borrowers and lenders alike.

Since mortgage technology is such a significant topic these days, we asked several industry experts at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Annual Conference to share their thoughts about data, predictive modeling, automation, and technology development.

Below, we’ll summarize the key insights from these conversations and highlight how you can use mortgage lending technology to benefit your business in 2023 and beyond.

How to Make Data-Driven Decisions Using Predictive Modeling

Many mortgage lenders have been adopting  a “data-driven approach” to business. But what does that mean? According to Suha Zehl, Chief Analytics Officer at EPM, being data-driven simply means using your data to make strategic decisions.

Here’s how you can harness your business data to predict future performance and optimize your strategies:

• • Identify all of your data sources – To start, you need to review your operations and identify all of your data sources. These data sources may include website analytics, online form submissions, email inquiries, social media analytics, and loan origination software (LOS) information.
  • Collect even more data – If you currently rely on many manual processes, aggregating important data points about your workflows may be difficult. Luckily, many mortgage tech solutions can help you collect more data automatically.
  • Clean your data – The quality of your data matters just as much as the quantity. You can clean your data by removing outliers that may inaccurately skew your bell curves. You may also need to codify certain data points so they can be included in your upcoming analysis.
  • Analyze the data – Once your data is nice and clean, you can analyze it and uncover trends. For instance, maybe you notice that your customer retention rate is much lower for younger borrowers than it is for older borrowers. Or maybe you discover that it takes an average of ten days to underwrite a loan. Being aware of these trends can help you pinpoint inefficiencies and optimize them going forward.
  • Employ prescriptive data modeling – Just as data can show you trends about what’s happened in the past, it can also help you forecast your future performance. You just need to input your data into a predictive model. Predictive models use your historical data and future inputs (such as changing markets or consumer trends) to predict your business’ performance.^[i]

With predictive modeling, you can prepare multiple strategies so your mortgage lending business is ready to go, no matter what the market throws at you next. For instance, you may want to create distinct roadmaps for each of the potential interest rate adjustments the Federal Reserve might employ in the upcoming months. If rates continue to rise, you may want to focus your attention on HELOCs and reverse mortgages, rather than new mortgages and refinances. If rates drop, your strategy will likely look much different.

As you can see, data can help you make more methodical decisions in your mortgage lending business. In turn, you can take on 2023 with confidence.

The Increasing Importance of Automation

Along with data and predictive modeling, automation can be a game-changer in your mortgage lending business. To learn more about automation, we spoke with Jann Peachman, Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Capacity.

She highlighted many benefits of adopting automated tools. Some of these benefits include:

• • Enhanced efficiencies – Automated mortgage tech solutions can complete processes much faster than humans can. In turn, they can save your business time and money.
  • Optimized utilization of human resources – High-value employees often spend too much of their valuable time on low-value tasks. Since automation eliminates the need for such human intervention, it allows your high-level employees to focus on more important tasks, such as engaging with borrowers.
  • Stabilized staffing – During the recent refi boom, many lenders increased their staff, only to struggle to afford their newly inflated payrolls when the market took a turn for the worst.
    Automated tools can help you scale in the future without hiring additional staff. In turn, you can avoid the costly cycle of hiring and right-sizing. Not only is this cycle time-consuming, but it can also hurt your company culture.

Check Out Certified Credit’s Automated Solutions

So, how can you empower your business through automation? Simply invest in automated mortgage lending solutions, like the ones we offer here at Certified Credit. Our growing suite of automated solutions includes:

• • Cascade Alerts can boost your customer retention by alerting you when borrowers within your existing customer base are actively seeking new mortgages.
  • Cascade Leads (coming soon) is an automated marketing solution that can help you produce highly-targeted campaigns for various segments within your target market.
  • Cascade Prequal enables you to prequalify leads automatically according to your customized credit thresholds using low-cost soft pull credit reports.
  • Cascade Undisclosed Debt Monitoring (UDM) can help you monitor your mortgage applicants’ creditworthiness throughout the loan origination process so you don’t face any surprises upon closing.
  • Cascade Verification of Income and Employment (VOE) allows you to automate your VOE vendor ordering process according to a customized cascade and sends you alerts as soon as it receives hits.

By adopting these types of automated solutions, you can scale your business without increasing your staff.

How to Enhance Your VOE With Experian Verify

Speaking of automation, one exceptional tool that mortgage lenders can use to enhance their workflows is Experian Verify. We spoke with Ken Tromer, a Verifications Specialist from Experian, to learn more about this tech-savvy solution.

Experian Verify is a third-party VOE product that can verify applicants’ income and employment history using robust employment and income databases. In other words, it can satisfy your VOE requirements without involving applicants or their employers.

Without a third-party VOE vendor, mortgage lenders must conduct the VOE process:

• • Manually – With manual VOE, your applicants must submit documents to verify their income and employment history. Not only does this method place a greater burden on your borrowers, but it’s also susceptible to fraud.
    You can mitigate fraud by reaching out to your borrowers’ employers directly, but getting in touch with them is often time-consuming. What’s more, some employers may not readily share their employees’ information with you, adding to the potential delays.
  • Using consumer-permissioned data – Consumer-permissioned VOE takes place when your borrowers give third-party vendors their bank account or payroll credentials, enabling these vendors to verify their information on your behalf.

While consumer-permissioned VOE has grown in popularity in recent years, some borrowers are still reluctant to share their credentials.

As you can see, third-party VOE vendors, like Experian Verify, can improve the VOE process for everyone involved. They can enhance convenience, lower costs, mitigate fraud, and expedite loan closing times.

Increase Your Hit Rate with Cascade VOE

Experian Verify just launched in the Spring of 2021,^[ii] but it’s already proved to be an invaluable tool. Its hit rate has increased from 15% to 23% in a little over a year. You can increase your hit rate even further by integrating Experian Verify with Cascade VOE.

Simply select Experian Verify (or your third-party VOE vendor of choice) for the first vendor of your cascade. If you don’t receive a hit right away, Cascade VOE can move on to other vendors until it returns a hit. If all of your third-party vendors and consumer-permissioned vendors come up short, our team at Certified Credit can complete the manual VOE process on your behalf.

Expect Even More Innovative Tech Solutions In The Future

So far, we’ve discussed many exciting tech solutions that exist right now. However, mortgage lenders can look forward to even more transformative tools in the coming years, thanks to The Mortgage Collaborative’s (TMC) Emerging Technology Fund.

Jim Park, Executive Chairman of TMC, explained the role of this venture capital fund. It was created to help mortgage technology developers obtain the financing and guidance they need to produce exceptional products. Many tech developers have brilliant ideas, but they may not have extensive experience in the mortgage industry. That’s where TMC can help. TMC partners with these developers every step of the way, tweaking their technology and hosting demonstrations of their finished products at TMC events.

With this support, many visionary tech developers can get their products on the market faster, enabling mortgage lenders to benefit from their innovations sooner.

Set Your Business Up For Success in 2023 By Partnering With Certified Credit

Each of the industry experts we interviewed had something unique to bring to the technology conversation. Despite their varying backgrounds, they all agree that now is the ideal time to update for mortgage lenders to update their technology. By doing so, you’ll be ready to scale up your business when the market improves.

Luckily, you don’t need to customize your tech stack alone. Certified Credit can serve as your trusted partner that’s dedicated to your success. We can help you identify the best tech solutions for your business and optimize your workflows as you scale up in the coming months. Some of our mortgage lending solutions include:

• • Automated loan manufacturing solutions
  • Lead generation tools
  • Affordable credit reports
  • Flood zone determinations
  • Fraud and risk support
  • Settlement services

Want to learn more about our products and services? Schedule a credit consultation with our team today.

 

Sources:

^[i] Gartner Information Technology Glossary. Definition of Predictive Modeling.

https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/predictive-modeling

^[ii] Experian. Introducing Experian Verify.

https://www.experian.com/blogs/insights/2021/05/introducing-experian-verify/