TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
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DRESS CODE ServiceLink's Chris Azur Offers Tips for Today's Lenders Industry experts have delivered varied forecasts for the 2012 mortgage marketplace, and in this month's Dress Code, ServiceLink's president, Chris Azur, offers key insights to help lending professionals prepare for an unpredictable year. Regulatory and Compliance Challenges AZUR // There are many unknowns around where the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will continue to in- vest its time and resources, but clearly, the regulatory and compliance chal- lenges as they are known today will continue to morph throughout 2012. As a result, lenders need to ensure they are partnering with scale service providers that have the technology, experience, people, and financial resources to continue to adapt and change with the market demands. One area of focus is eliminating field-based risk from their origina- tion processes through initiatives that bring their retail banking footprints into a more centralized process for all of their refinance transactions. Another area of focus for lenders is on improving quality and limiting their exposure on valuation-based risk by leveraging a smaller pool of strategic-scale partners that can offer them improved workflow and quality scoring tools incorporated into their overall underwriting process. New Tools and Products AZUR // There are several leading tools that lenders can continue to leverage to reduce their risk, improve quality, enhance their efficiencies, and, most important, improve the overall experience for their consumer: • Web-based closing solutions tar- geting specific lending channels. • Streamlined and adaptive, rules- based title engines to facilitate rapid closing time frames and improved throughput required for HARP 2.0 volume. • Qualified risk-scoring tools to wrap around an underwriter-reviewed and underwriter-approved ap- praisal product. • Web-based ordering, workflow, and delivery technologies that provide the same flexibilities and "We believe that each and every one of our employees is a crucial piece of the success of our organization and that all are all empowered (and indebted) to make the right decisions for our customers." — Chris Azur, ServiceLink • Innovation—We are constantly evolving our technologies, prod- ucts, and processes to ensure that we are making the best decisions for our clients. • Partnership—We approach every relationship with our customers, employees, and consumers with a focus on ensuring that we can deliver on their expectations and work to establish long-term strate- gic relationships based on a mutual exchange of values. • Quality—Product and work quality have always been a hallmark of do- ing business with ServiceLink and it is ingrained into every employee. • Focus—We believe in strong, focused leadership, using a "Divide, Empower, and Conquer" approach to building teams of specialists around every opportunity. We believe that each and every one of our employees is a crucial piece of the success of our organization and that all are all empowered (and indebted) to make the right decisions for our customers. innovations to lenders of all sizes. • Appraisal automated appointment scheduling tools that allow the loan officers to coordinate appraisal inspection times directly with their customer. Loss Mitigation and Risk Management AZUR // There are many facets of risk. Of course, it starts with a quality origination around sound industry best practices. From the focus on ap- praisal quality and risk-based scoring, to LTV and credit policies, to improve- ments in mortgage recordation time frames, to centralization efforts and improved title policy production (to only name some of the changes), the new products on the market are considerably less risky than any of the predecessor products. The larger focus is on the exist- ing portfolios and the significant delinquency rates that plague these historic files. On this front, servicers are focused on offering their consum- ers every opportunity for retention— as their first defense line—manag- ing these processes with internal, focused staff and improved workflow technologies that tie all stages and participants in the process together. Leadership Initiatives AZUR // At ServiceLink, the leader- ship initiatives that help us stand alone with our employees and our customers across all of our business lines include: • Entrepreneurship—We bring the best people in at all levels of management who experience a strong entrepre- neurial background and spirit. • Autonomy—Throughout our organization, our people have the autonomy to make the right deci- sion for our customers' specific situation on each transaction. The Politics of Housing AZUR // The current HARP 2.0 program is a very powerful tool for consumers and should be a driver for current homeowners to reduce their mortgage payments and put more liquidity into the markets. However, we need more direct-to-consumer awareness on the benefits of this pro- gram. The first pass at HARP helped less than 1 million consumers, but from our experience, that represented less than 15 percent of those that would qualify. Consumers need to un- derstand that when they are solicited as prequalified for this program, there really are no strings attached, and it is "found money" for them. The current perspective on the lending pro- cess has led to a cautious borrower that often discards the invitation to participate in HARP. With a more positive perspective on this program, we should be able to achieve much higher acceptance rates. THE M REPORT | 15