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DRIVING CHANGE CMP spoke to some of the most influential figures in Canada’s mortgage technology space to find out what the future has in store THERE ARE few things more essential to the daily lives of mortgage professionals than the technology they use. Its significance has only been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced brokers and their clients to replace tasks that would once have been done in person – discussing options, collecting signatures, submitting documents – with virtual solutions. Yet the digital revolution in the mortgage space was already well underway before the pandemic. Over the past few years, a plethora of new options and competitors have entered the industry to foster a healthy culture of innovation across a host of different areas: marketing, lead generation, document transfer, deal submissions and more.
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When CMP spoke with some of the leading figures in the mortgage tech space, that increasing diversity of products and offerings was abundantly clear. While the mortgage industry was once defined by a one-sizefits-all approach to technology, the explosion of new entrants to the sector can only be viewed as a positive development – one that gives mortgage professionals more options than ever in their choice of digital solution.
The new normal While the importance of technology in the mortgage industry had already been rising precipitously before the pandemic, there’s little question that its trajectory was accelerated by the circumstances that came into play
last March. One of the executives CMP spoke with estimated that mortgage technology experienced three to five years’ worth of evolution in the space of a few months as mortgage professionals grappled with the reality of having to conduct business remotely. That new arrangement meant that even those brokers who had proved most resistant to technology were forced out of their comfort zone. Virtual meetings replaced face-to-face interactions across all levels of the mortgage industry, whether through daily or weekly staff meetings, conference calls with partners, or advisory sessions with clients. That’s a feature of the past year that might be less prevalent as soon as the pandemic is over and staff begin to return to offices,
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18/05/2021 4:02:18 am
