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58 momentum with customers. " ough many of the technologies that mortgage services companies are using have been around for a while, much of their implementation in the industry has been relatively recent, with many firms upgrading their technology, particularly in the last year, according to several experts. "Mortgage technology for servicing has become digital, user-friendly, and available," Brent Rasmussen, EVP and CIO for Carrington Mortgage Holdings said. "Consumers are much more comfortable with digital self-service items." Below is a look at the digital and other technologies that mortgage servicing experts say are making positive impacts on their businesses and their customers. DIGITAL DOCUMENTATION e move to digital documentation has been progressing for many years, but in the last couple, the evolution has taken a quantum leap, according to Rasmussen. Now rather than just scanning documents as they come into the enterprise, the servicers are receiving digitized files from lenders, which is critical not only for speed and efficiency but also for compliance. "Mortgage technology has come a long way in providing more consistency and transparency through the lending process," Hyland's Comer adds. "Much of the advancements made in this area have been done out of necessity because of the impact of compliance requirements over the last several years. Lenders now have more data than ever at their disposal from the very start of the origination process, allowing them to make better lending decisions. e accessible data allows them to review a wealth of metrics related to their consumer pool—from at-risk DI ratios, at-risk credit levels, consumer metrics in certain regions, key LTV ratios, etc.—that ultimately result in a stronger loan portfolio, thereby reducing the potential for past-due loans or defaults." With digital documentation, mortgage servicers have been able to incorporate digital onboarding of accounts, which wasn't possible before because servicers didn't have electronic documentation for prior payments to other servicers, updated appraisal, escrow, title, and other information, according to Rasmussen. "Now that everything is digital, we can do that, making things more seamless for the borrower. e consumer has benefitted from a lot of these changes." AUTOMATION/MACHINE LEARNING While servicers have used digital processes as they became available, there were still many manual processes, which have given away to more comprehensive automation only relatively recently, Rasmussen says. "A bot does the same thing every single time, so it eliminates errors. When used properly, it changes the efficiency and the accuracy of the industry. We have them in production now. is is a tool that can be used in numerous instances. It's a rules-driven process. Robots in process automation will be a game-changer in our industry." Since the bots handle many processes, there is no need to have human staff after "business hours," yet customers can still receive most of the services they need, Rasmussen adds. "Automation is allowing loan officers, buyers, sellers and title companies to interact at lightning speed," Lynn Black, Marketing Manager for LiquidVZN Group, LLC said. "e acceptance of mobile notaries by mortgage companies is making the closing process even easier for buyers and sellers, especially when the parties are in different states. Portals can now notify all parties involved within seconds of a new submission, limiting human error and making the sale efficient. is same automation can make payment processing a breeze for both the borrow and the accounting department." "From the lender's point of view, the largest contributor to the cost of loan production is still personnel," Comer said. "Technologies that effectively cut down on the number of people required to interact with the loan process, duplication of data, 'stare and compare,' etc. are going to have an enormous impact on the bottom line to generate a loan. Much of the cost involved still revolves around the gathering of documents and validation of data to ensure the loans are meeting all requirements. Technologies that allow automation of gathering, extracting and validating all of the necessary data will provide a rapid ROI." With everything, from coupon rates to loan performance information to payment characteristics all readily available, a servicer can now better predict delinquencies and be more proactive when pursuing loss mitigation strategies, Rasmussen says. EASILY ACCESSIBLE TOOLS It used to be that to do almost anything data analytics; a servicer had to have expensive hardware and software and technically adept "Mortgage technology for servicing has become digital, user-friendly, and available. Consumers are much more comfortable with digital self-service items." - Brent Rasmussen, EVP and CIO, Carrington Mortgage Holdings

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