Devin Daly of TRUE: AI is Changing Quality Control and Transforming the Mortgage Industry

MBA NewsLink interviewed Devin Daly, Chief Revenue Officer with TRUE. As CRO, he is responsible for the firm’s revenue strategy and execution, including managing both the sales and partner organizations, in addition to business development and sales operations functions.

Daly has extensive experience within the mortgage and lending industry. He has held senior business development and leadership roles at Homebridge Financial, Vantage, and Ellie Mae, and is also a member of the New Jersey Mortgage Bankers Association. Devin holds an M.S. Degree in Computer Science from Kean University and a B.A. in English from The College of New Jersey.

MBA NewsLink: Why is quality control such a challenge for mortgage lenders?

Devin Daly, TRUE: A fundamental and frustrating reality of mortgage lending is that no one trusts the data. We know that mistakes are made when data is extracted from borrower’s document. We know there are varying levels of risk if we don’t catch and correct those errors. And we also know that cost-to-correct increases the further we progress through loan origination.

The only way to manage this currently is through multiple reviews of both data and the underlying documents. There are so many checks that we often call it “checking the checker.” This duplication is essential if we’re to make sound lending decisions, but it creates a data bottleneck that snarls up the whole system.

NewsLink: How can technology assist lenders with continuous QC?

Daly: Technology that ends the data bottleneck resolves the biggest pains of checking the checker: the high costs in human labor and time. Artificial intelligence, or AI, of the kind we’ve built at TRUE allows borrower document-to-data conversion and all data verification steps to be completely automated. When the data is automated, so is much of the QC process.

That’s not to mention the gains in data accuracy and completeness that are outcomes of using AI. Better data quality means fewer errors, so not only is QC made faster through automation but there are fewer correction tasks to deal with.

NewsLink: What is the impact on post-closing QC?

Daly: In the post-close phase, it’s all about accuracy. Errors in loans lead to delayed loan purchases, more expansive checks, and even costly buybacks. When QC checks are performed entirely manually, the balance of cost vs. risk means it’s accepted practice that loans will contain some errors.

When AI is integrated throughout origination processes, the reduction in errors makes post-closing QC a much lighter task. And while manual checks remain a regulatory requirement, with AI the review can expand from a small sample to the entire loan portfolio. This means most all errors are found and corrected, the number of rejected loans and buybacks is minimal, and investors will score that lender more highly over time.

NewsLink: How can the secondary market use this technology?

Daly: It’s investors in the secondary market that demand accuracy because they don’t want to take on the risk of bad loan decisions due to flawed data. The challenge they face is the time and cost of reviewing loan portfolios, even though a review of just 5-10 percent of loans is recognized as very risky.

With the AI that’s built into the TRUE Platform, entire loan portfolios can be reviewed in a matter of hours. This comprehensive and fast review process ends the uncertainty of sampling. It means a huge reduction in risk and that makes it a complete game-changer for investors.

NewsLink: What will be the impact for borrowers, lenders, and servicers?

Daly: When the data used to manufacture loans is provably correct and the tasks of capturing and verifying it are automated, mortgage origination costs fall, closing times are reduced, and risk falls. These outcomes are happening now as the AI developed by TRUE is integrated into lending processes by our customers.

Lenders gain a more efficient and robust business, servicers and correspondents have greater confidence in loan quality, while borrowers get faster lending decisions. Depending on how lenders choose to redeploy cost and time savings, there can be benefits to customer experience and lower lending fees. The full impact of AI for data automation is yet to be seen, but I believe it’s going to transform our industry for the better.

(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 NewsLink Editor Michael Tucker at mtucker@mba.org or Editorial Manager Anneliese Mahoney at amahoney@mba.org.)