This September, we had the opportunity to attend the Digital Mortgage Conference in Las Vegas. Our team members attend this annual event to learn about how the industry continues to build upon its digitization journey and how Intellifi can keep up with the new trends.
Here are the top 7 trends we identified as being an integral part of the future of our industry.
Touchless Lending
The era of touchless lending is here, and the industry continues to make significant advancements to make what was once thought to be impossible a reality. Through auto-decision and collecting data electronically, such as income, collateral, and credit verification, we are shifting from a manual, paper-based process to an instant and fully digital mortgage experience for borrowers. However, it is essential to remember that the lending journey does not stop once the deal is approved. It carries forward to condition management, document verification, to servicing.
At Intellifi, we have already enabled several of our lender partners to provide a 1-minute commitment without an underwriter even touching the deal.
Document Management
The industry is primed for a massive shift towards automation when discussing document management. One of the key areas of improvement is the need to create a seamless document management integration between the POS and LOS. E-mailing and faxing documents are out-of-date processes and are rapidly being replaced by tightly knit connections where documents can be automatically uploaded directly to the lender with the correct classification. So, whether you are a borrower trying to upload documents to the lender, or a broker waiting to view the status of a condition or document that is yet to be verified, there is a greater push to get the document management piece as user-friendly and instant as possible.
Optical/Intelligent Character Recognition (OCR/ICR) is the ability of a machine to convert and read the text found within images, PDFs, and other types of electronic files. Although this technology has been around for quite some time, the lending industry has yet to take advantage of its benefits. There are many documents in the mortgage process, regardless of them being origination or servicing related. They are currently being read and processed manually by people, but what if you could guarantee that a machine could read them within seconds with 100% accuracy? The amount of time and energy you are currently expending would shrink astronomically!
Configurability and Customization
Speed to market is critical when it comes to all things lending. Surprisingly, many institutions rely on a heavy developer presence whenever something within the system needs to be changed. Something as simple as providing a new product offering, supporting minor regulatory changes, and pricing changes, are all areas that should be configurable, but due to archaic legacy systems, lenders are forced to contact the development team for code changes.
This scenario is quickly changing with modern technology, where almost any change can be made with configuration. The self-serve model allows lenders to maintain control of their platform and truly own the customer experience, with quicker turnaround times for changes while significantly lowering overhead costs. Intellifi's software solutions were built from the ground up based on 'No Code,' where rules are configurable, and the software is customizable for each client's needs.
Data-Driven Intelligence
Every organization has a plethora of data available at its fingertips but finding meaning in the data is the hard part. Intellifi has already started using this data to offer a wide range of services, such as auto-adjudication, enhanced retention prediction models, dynamic product pricing engines, and an intelligent investor allocation engine, among many others. Data is our future and will help push us further down the path toward the digital mortgage of the future.
Open Banking
Open Banking is coming to Canada and will make a huge splash in the industry. As we move closer to this reality, we expect to see more doors open for many different market players. The industry will have more access to data from multiple companies specialized in different areas. We expect to see an increase in data-driven companies that will create a more robust ecosystem that will lead to a quicker, more efficient digital mortgage journey for both the lender and their borrowers.
This signifies the importance of continually integrating with all the available and relevant data sources that will add value to your platform and process. Creating partnerships with the ever-growing roster of companies who can help take you from A to Z is expected to ramp up faster than ever before. From when a borrower starts looking for a home to when they apply for a mortgage, and even after it's closed, the partnerships and integrations will allow this cycle to be simpler and more certain.
Portals and Artificial Intelligence
It is key to develop and build upon an open API infrastructure to allow consumers to engage with their mortgage digitally with a few clicks. The simplicity of logging into a portal to make a payment change set up prepayments, or even download statements sure beats listening to elevator music while on hold waiting for a representative to make these changes for you. In addition, the comfort and reliability of an instantaneous controlled change provide borrowers with the convenience they desire while significantly reducing lenders' overhead costs.
Having a portal to make these simple interactions is a step in the right direction, but the question remains: how can we take this to the next level and address questions that an actual person would need to answer? The current trend in the industry seems like the answer: utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.
AI essentially means that a computer or robot can complete tasks which humans previously did. Chatbots continue becoming more prevalent and sophisticated for customer-facing applications and internal lending teams. Chatbots can offload repetitive questions from resources that can be better utilized elsewhere.
However, will this be enough to remove a person from the equation?
Broader Ecosystem
Currently, the mortgage ecosystem consists of a limited subset of connected services and integrations. However, as opportunities continue to pop up, a broader ecosystem can be created to offer ancillary (adjacent) services (within privacy regulations). A few trending examples are products such as home insurance, maintenance services, appliances, painting, and renovations.
The mortgage process has ample room to allow borrowers to take advantage of specially catered offers. We have seen this done through bundling other products, such as HELOCs, Credit Cards, and Home Warranty, but a shift towards being able to sign up for additional services seems to be in the pipeline as we focus more on digitalization and personalization.
In conclusion, organizations should aim to enable the whole home ownership journey via simple, intuitive interactions. The Residential and Commercial end-to-end digital solutions offered by Intellifi are built to continue to provide exactly this. Our focus is to continue adding functionality that will allow lenders to provide the best experience possible for every single party interacting with their loan. Whether these are borrowers, investors, insurers, or another third party, we want to help your business grow.
We provide the most robust, feature-rich suite of software lending solutions in the industry – tailored for your business. Contact us today to learn how we can make your business future-ready and deliver rich customer experiences.