TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
Issue link: http://digital.themreport.com/i/1494596
32 | M R EP O RT FEATURE RPA technology as a tool for almost any "in-between" task or process. Even in today's more au- tomated mortgage lending world, anywhere you find a disconnect between technologies, you are highly likely to find a human being manually pulling, compar- ing, or inputting (if not verify- ing or updating) data as well as moving it along to the next automated phase of the process. These are the areas that make it difficult to bring down the cost to originate or averages days to close. RPA technology is also being used to automate parts of the credit prequalification process as well as many other burdensome, administrative (but necessary) tasks that generally fall to an LO. For example, bots can help to sort credit scores and send the corresponding applications to the most appropriate "bucket." So, the applications with the top FICO scores would be sent straight to the LO, while fair scores might be sent for further evaluation by the credit team. In fact, those credit scores may, in and of themselves, have been pulled or extracted with the help of bots. The same is true of background checks or flood cer- tifications. All of these tasks are notoriously time consuming and take LOs away from what they do best: winning new customers and supporting applicants with more complex challenges. All the same, for compliance or practi- cal reasons, these tasks remain necessary to the process. Where bots are used to improve the effi- ciency (and productivity) of LOs, they are also playing a role in the potential increase of revenue. Bots can also help during the closing and even post-closing process. Again, the technology is an optimal way to eliminate manual data entry from the operation. Take, for example, the labor intensive production of closing disclosures. Or compliance with investor requirements or guide- lines. Consider, even, forms made necessary by municipality or local regulator that might not have been addressed by a larger, more global technology, thus requiring a proces- sor to manually pull the required data from wherever it might oth- erwise reside within the tech stack (or, worse, from another paper form or Excel spreadsheet) and manual- ly enter it into the corresponding website or system required. Anywhere processors, under- writers or frontline staffers once needed to spend significant time cutting and pasting, emailing files, or even spending inordinate amounts of time with two, three, or five different portals or pro- grams open at their workstations, the potential for the effective automation of those processes is made possible with bots. The world of mortgage lending has come a long way in a very short time. As we see the removal of many of the legal, regulatory, and practical barriers that helped drive the mortgage transaction process into the convoluted and confusing operation it has long been, we are seeing lenders turn to technology to streamline the process and, in so doing, make it more transparent and profitable. While lenders have fully em- braced the modernization of the origination side of the process, they are ready to attack the gaps in their workflow and the pro- cessing or "back end" functions that have long slowed the course of the transaction. In so doing, it is very likely they will turn to bots for assistance. JIMMY LEWIS is CEO and Co-Founder of TrueFocus Automation, a Dallas-based provider of custom software bot development and Automation as a Service solutions to the title and mortgage industry. He can be reached by email at Jimmy@ TrueFocusNow.com. SRIDHAR LOGANATHAN is COO and Co-Founder of TrueFocus Automation. He can be reached by email at Sridhar@TrueFocusNow.com. This April, the Five Star Institute's premier trade publications, DS News and MReport, are joining forces to become MortgagePoint. This new publication will bring you the same exclusive news, features, interviews, and commentary you've come to expect from Five Star—now taken to the next level and all in one place. MortgagePoint will be your one-stop shop for coverage of the full spectrum of mortgage, from originations to default. Scan the QR code to sign up and learn more. THE INDUSTRY'S MOST VALUED PUBLICATIONS JOINING FORCES Magazine INTRODUCING