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FinTech … Meet My Friend he popular topic of financial technology, better known as “FinTech,” is saturating the blogosphere. A simple search for “FinTech” on Google gives you millions of results. Some authors seem riddled with anxiety, prophesizing doom, while others suggest investing millions into this new market. In truth, FinTech has been around in one form or another since the development of technology itself. For the mortgage industry, FinTech is not new, but particular innovations are. Online mortgage applications, automated underwriting and customer resource managers (CRM) are only a few of the innovations that are improving the customer experience. Mortgage companies are notorious for having a low adoption rate, but now they have no choice. It’s not a matter of why, but when. The good news is the change won’t be as dramatic as some of you may fear.
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APRIL 2020 n National Mortgage Professional Magazine n
NationalMortgageProfessional.com
46
Where can the customer experience improve? Unreasonable underwriting periods, uncertainty about approval and unknown market
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By Christian Olin
“There is plenty of discussion about how FinTech is disrupting the market, but as stated before, it’s supplementary. In all truth, people will need a personalized approach to origination, because the process itself will always be confusing
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conditions can cause stress for the buyer. It’s hard out here for a prospective borrower. Despite all of our attempts to make it seem simple, in advertising and in person, mortgage origination is not magic. In some cases, the origination process takes weeks
of labor. Borrowers will sometimes give up halfway through, and insight from Ellie Mae suggests around half will actually quit during the beginning of the online application. This leaves plenty of room for lenders to improve.
What the borrower wants According to a mortgage survey conducted by JD Power, consumers have a few basic needs … Number one, lenders need to communicate with consumers throughout the origination process. It’s important that loan officer’s and lenders make themselves available for consumers and update them at each milestone. At our firm, On Q Financial, we send out automated e-mail updates, and go a step further by conferring with clients over the phone. This personal touch is a characteristic of smaller agencies that borrowers find larger organizations lack, according to a recent study published by Ellie Mae. Number two, borrowers want faster closings. It’s a hot market, and borrowers want to know their loan is secure. The mortgage process is extremely time-consuming, so any way that we as originators can accelerate the process without sacrificing quality will benefit consumers. Number three, borrowers want to be treated like individuals. Whether they prefer to work online or in person, you should be giving them the choice. Technology should only be an addition to the already existing experience. FinTech won’t be able to improve the borrower experience by itself. It’s about letting the borrower have their choice and working within the needs of the individual. We shouldn’t treat every borrower as if they were the same. Where does technology play a role? Technology will be able to help with every single aspect of origination from application to the closing table. Better CRMs will allow large and small lenders to take a more personalized approach with their clients. Automation will make faster closings possible. Every aspect of origination is going to change, and it’s for the better, but it is by no means the end of the story. FinTech and the customer experience There is plenty of discussion about how FinTech is disrupting the market, but as stated before, it’s supplementary. In all truth, people will need a personalized approach to origination, because