Enact’s Vishal Shyamsunder and Vinny Souza–Data Modernization: Why Should Lenders Care?
Vishal Shyamsunder is Head of Front Office Applications at Enact, Raleigh, N.C., where he is responsible for delivering cloud-first enterprise class, secure and reliable application products and data engineering capabilities. Vinny Souza is the Head of Data Science at Enact, where he is responsible for revolutionizing enterprise operations with AI and data science solutions. The statements provided are the opinions of Vishal Shyamsunder and Vinny Souza and do not reflect the views of Enact or its management.
Forbes recently reported that AI is expected to see an annual growth rate of 37.3% from 2023 to 2030. Businesses are looking to AI to help them perform in the years to come. Nearly every organization will have the opportunity to utilize AI and automation to add incremental improvements in productivity and customer relationships while reimagining entire value chains and fostering innovation.
Mortgage lenders, specifically, stand to benefit from leveraging their vast amounts of data with AI tools. The current reality is that companies can still gain significant advantages from AI even without any existing data as the advancements in large language models (LLMs) have made it possible to use AI for various applications right out of the box. However, integrating current and reliable data can further enhance and customize its benefits.
This is where data modernization comes in. Data modernization is the process of updating an organization’s data systems and practices to leverage current technologies, methodologies, and platforms. Businesses must stay competitive, efficient, and agile in today’s data-driven world. Data modernization enables organizations to extract more value from their data assets, make faster and more informed decisions, and adapt quickly to changing market conditions.
Today’s lenders face an overwhelming amount of change and pressures from every angle. Why should data modernization be at the top of their list of concerns?
Technological Advancements
Rapid advancements in technology, such as cloud computing, machine learning, and generative artificial intelligence, are prompting organizations to modernize their data systems. Many lenders today remain stuck on legacy systems that greatly impede their ability to access their data and leverage its true power. These advancing technologies offer unprecedented capabilities for data processing, storage, and analysis, enabling businesses to gain deeper insights and create innovative data-driven products and services.
Competitive Pressures
Organizations need to modernize in an increasingly data-driven business landscape to avoid falling behind their competitors. Companies that effectively leverage modern data technologies can provide better customer experiences, quickly identify new opportunities and respond faster to market changes – especially critical in the mortgage industry. Data modernization can even open new lines of revenue and new businesses. This competitive advantage is driving many organizations to prioritize data modernization initiatives.
Business Needs
Organizations also are driven to modernize their data infrastructure to meet evolving business needs. Scalability is essential to handle growing data volumes and user demands, while flexibility allows for quick adaptation to new data sources and analytics requirements. Loan volumes will always fluctuate, and it’s important that a lender’s technology can scale with them.
Lenders can achieve cost efficiency through optimized resource utilization and reduced maintenance costs. Especially during slower periods, this is critical for a lender’s bottom line.
Additionally, enhanced security measures are crucial to protect sensitive data and comply with increasingly stringent regulations. Organizations in financial services, healthcare, education and manufacturing were hit by the largest number of data compromises last year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. With the mortgage industry a clear target, lenders who want to leverage their data must, at the same, continue to prioritize protecting it.
Finally, a modern data infrastructure can help recruit and retain top talent. As fewer IT professionals specialize in certain languages or platforms, the number of people able to maintain legacy systems is shrinking. Meanwhile, new and emerging IT talent is entering the industry with skills that are focused on new and modern infrastructure. If lenders do not need these new data skills, they will lose out on attracting new, top talent.
The need for data modernization is clear. Technology will keep advancing, whether lenders choose to modernize or not. There are many benefits that are just waiting to be realized, but first, lenders need to build a strong foundation by modernizing their data infrastructure. This commitment will take time, but it will also open new doors of opportunity.
(Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect policies of the Mortgage Bankers Association, nor do they connote an MBA endorsement of a specific company, product or service. MBA NewsLink welcomes submissions from member firms. Inquiries can be sent to Editor Michael Tucker or Editorial Manager Anneliese Mahoney.)
