Sam Verma of PrivoCorp: Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Mortgage Outsourcing Partner
Sam Verma is the CEO of PrivoCorp, Austin, Texas. She is a mortgage industry veteran of 25+ years of experience. She brings institutional-level loan servicing experience. She spent two decades originating mortgages and/or managing origination teams and is a go-to consultant that advises mortgage processors on how to work smarter to drive down costs and close loans faster. She can be reached on sam@privocorp.com.
The mortgage industry is a constantly evolving and poses a number of challenges for lenders, such as changing borrower expectations, fluctuating closing ratios, increasing costs of origination, meeting compliance norms and improving growth. One way for lenders to manage productivity while responding proactively is to join hands with reliable mortgage processing partners who can offer strong support and let lenders focus on market expansion.
Outsourcing helps lenders better manage upticks in loan requests, lowers costs per loan and keeps their loyal customer base happy. Lenders can also look for assistance in terms of reducing their workload when it comes to time-consuming, high-volume tasks related to loan onboarding & processing, underwriting, title ordering, borrower engagement for missing documents, post-closing and so on.
There are a number of factors to consider when you look for a partner to outsource mortgage processing support. This article looks at some of the most critical factors that you have to look at to keep the process straightforward.
Domain Knowledge and Expertise
While choosing a mortgage process outsourcing partner, it is imperative that you look at the amount of experience they have in the field. The more number of years they have spent in the industry, the more domain experience they are likely to have, to deal with the vagaries of the market. It is necessary that the company you outsource to has deep domain knowledge and a good grip over industry best practices.
Additionally, an experienced mortgage processing partner will have tried and tested processes, tools and methodologies in place to extend support for the entire mortgage process optimization. Domain experience will also ensure that the partner’s team will have in-depth knowledge of compliance requisites, evolving regulations and changing mortgage mandates.
Robust Technology Solutions
Having strong technology infrastructure is not just good to have, but a must-have for mortgage today. The outsourcing partner needs to provide cutting-edge technologies for a stellar customer experience and improved accuracy in decision-making. Technology can accelerate all stages of the loan cycle while also replacing manual steps by improving process speed and accuracy.
Mortgage outsourcing partners must leverage sophisticated automation solutions such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation along with data analytics applications to help streamline the processes involved in assessing risks, identifying anomalies, forecasting loan performance, replying to customer queries and improving accuracy in loan documents.
Mortgage Compliance & Industry Best Practices Knowledge
The mortgage industry has strict standards related to compliance, which means industry regulations and protocols have to be followed to avoid penalties. Mortgage outsource partners must have in-depth knowledge about the federal guidelines While choosing a partner, it is crucial to ensure that they have past use cases that show adherence of industry guidelines.
Such partners will also have proficient teams who work with accuracy, efficiency and within the regulatory requirements. In fact, the right partner will generate the highest configurations and workflows to help the entire system maintain compliance from mortgage origination till post-closing.
Support to Improve Closing Ratios
Improving closing ratios is another area where the mortgage processing partner has to offer reliable support. Before a loan is considered closed there are a number of procedures and time frames involved and it is possible that the borrower may decide to back out at any step for whatever reasons.
Even though outsourcing may not entirely obliterate this possibility, a mortgage partner can help in speeding up the decision-making process, and decreasing the likelihood of a borrower bailing out of a loan application. Processing partners can help lenders present great customer experience through innovation, efficiency, consistency and timeliness, in turn, ensuring the borrower stays till the end.
Flexible Pricing Options
Mortgage is a complex process that includes several steps from pre-approval, mortgage application, loan processing, underwriting, and finally closing. But there’s a high chance that if borrowers are not happy at any step, they may choose to opt out of the process. If that happens, the lender still has to incur costs on processing the papers for each loan originated.
If the loan is not closed, the processing fees invested by the lender will go waste. It helps to have a mortgage process partner who provides the option of paying only for funded loans. In this case, the lender will have to pay only the processing fees for the loans that are actually closed. Mortgage partners take up the responsibility of speeding up the decision-making process, reducing the chances of a borrower bailing out and closing a maximum number of loans.
Key Takeaways
Since mortgage is a time- and resource-intensive industry, it helps to have experienced partners who can give crucial support to ease the process. Choosing the right partner for mortgage process outsourcing after careful consideration can yield the best results in terms of enhanced business productivity.
(Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect policy of the Mortgage Bankers Association, nor do they connote an MBA endorsement of a specific company, product or service. MBA NewsLink welcomes your submissions. Inquiries can be sent to Mike Sorohan, editor, at msorohan@mba.org; or Michael Tucker, editorial manager, at mtucker@mba.org.)
