Third-party technology and data providers are streamlining more parts of the mortgage process, enabling lenders to focus on the actual business of lending and building relationships. This also allows for a faster and more efficient process, so that lenders can handle more loans in a shorter period of time, allowing borrowers who qualify to obtain loan approvals or secure refinancing more quickly.

Front-end modernization, workflow management, document extraction and management, income and asset verification, title verification, appraisal management, electronic closings and automated compliance are just a few of the areas where third-party technology and data providers are making the entire mortgage process much more efficient, enabling closings to occur in weeks rather than the multiple months it took only a few short years ago.

Digitization eliminates much of the time-consuming and error-prone paper processes of past decades, but even though the goal of digitization is to streamline the mortgage process, there are still challenges, because there are still areas where manual processes have yet to be replaced, according to CoreLogic.

“Bottlenecks are a reality is the digital mortgage process,” CoreLogic said in a recent blog. “Most bottlenecks form because of delays in document processing due to painstaking manual operations, human errors or unforeseen occurrences.”

Document automation is continuing to evolve, CoreLogic added, with verification and comparisons available for increasingly complex documents without the need for human intervention.

In addition to automated document management, third-party technology and data providers can help mortgage lenders automate verification, as well as pre-qualified and pre-approval checks, providing borrowers with a faster, smoother path to obtaining a loan, in turn providing a better customer experience.

“Borrowers will remember how seamless you made the process, which will increase your odds of retaining your clients and having them become brand advocates,” according to CoreLogic.

Beyond working with third-party technology and data providers, other ways that mortgage lenders can help streamline their business include breaking down the process, embracing digitization, incorporating self-sufficiency, providing transparency and improving communication.

By breaking the end-to-end process down into smaller, though integrated, segments the lender can help borrowers better understand what they need to do, such as documents they need to obtain, so the process can flow more smoothly for the borrower and lender alike. Smaller segments can be much easier to understand than long, complicated instructions.

Embracing digitization means doing more than just offering an online application. Technology and data providers offer ways to streamline your processes from end to end. It’s best to take advantage of any digitization processes that you haven’t already implemented.

Incorporating self sufficiency means enabling borrowers to handle those portions of the mortgage application process that they can, meaning they can enter any details on their own schedules, rather than needing to find mutually convenient times to interact with a loan officer.

Keeping the lines of communication open, by whatever channels necessary, is imperative for all of the above.   

Communication within your organization and with borrowers is critical to learn of and resolve any issues in the process and to keep borrowers abreast of the status of their loan.

More to Come

Adam Stern, Docutech chief technology and product officer, said in a recent MortgageOrb interview that the trends toward more automation in the broader economy will continue to advance in the mortgage industry, with advancing process digitization and more use of artificial intelligence to help lenders cut costs and improve scalability while also bettering overall quality.

“Mortgage lenders should ensure that they have trusted and experienced technology partners…providing support and best practices,” Stern said. “It is incumbent upon technology companies to solve challenges for clients.”

Increased use use of mortgage technology will help lenders meet the dual challenges of decreasing loan volumes and higher costs that are impacting the industry this year, Stern added. “Mortgage technology can help streamline the entire mortgage process, starting with simplifying mortgage applications and then working through each subsequent step or component, to reduce time to close, minimize data entry, improve quality, scalability or experience.”