Ellie Mae Platform Adds Integrations To Help Lenders Looking To Go More Digital During COVID-19 Crisis

Ellie Mae offers up new Ellie Mae Digital Lending Platform capabilities to support lenders during the evolving COVID-19 pandemic.

“We recognize that in these unprecedented times, lenders are experiencing increased refinance loan volumes while contending with the need to support virtual workforces and consumer demand for online services,” said Jonathan Corr, President and CEO of Ellie Mae. “With the Ellie Mae Digital Lending Platform, lenders can take advantage of Ellie Mae innovation as well as the capabilities provided by our robust network of partners who are speeding innovation and integrations to meet the changing demands.”

“From consumer engagement functionality and mobilizing loan officers to eClosing and homeowner-guided appraisals, mortgage technology can help lenders continue to manage workflow and processes in a seamless, digital manner. This is critical when in-person interaction is limited.”

Ellie Mae and the Ellie Mae Network of partners are responding by enabling lenders to take advantage of current and evolving technologies being built on the Ellie Mae Digital Lending Platform to decrease in person and/or manual interactions, such as accepting more appraisal waiver offers and doing electronic verifications of income, assets, employment, etc.  In addition, new partner integrations and offerings can assist lenders with their capacity and virtual mortgage manufacturing needs.

eClosing and Remote Online Notarization (RON):  In today’s environment,eClosings have become an important tool where one or more of the required closing documents are accessed, presented and signed electronically. Ellie Mae has added two new eClosing partners to our Platform and is excited to support GSE-announced support for RON in 42 states and the District of Columbia.

• Notarize: Notarize allows signers to electronically review, sign and notarize real estate documents from anywhere in the world. By integrating Notarize with Encompass, lenders can “click-to-close” loans online and automate the entire closing workflow.

• Snapdocs: The Snapdocs integration creates an origination-to-closing table and back again connection, seamlessly unifying lenders, title, signing agents, and borrowers in a single workflow for every closing. The solution simplifies the closing process by offering a suite of closing tools, including borrower document preview, automated hybrid document sorting and annotating, RON, and more.

Appraisal Alternatives and innovations: The Ellie Mae Digital Lending Platform can immediately support flexibilities announced by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the government agencies with regard to appraisal alternatives. Ellie Mae made immediate updates to our appraisal center to highlight different appraisal ordering options, and appraisal partners across the industry are ensuring that lenders can take advantage of these alternatives when getting into the home is difficult due to social distancing constraints.  In addition, partners are innovating to make the process better in other ways as well:

• Clear Capital: Clear Capital just launched OwnerInsight, a free mobile friendly service that walks homeowners through capturing simple interior/exterior photos and information to keep homeowners and appraisers safe while giving the appraiser and lender consistent information about the home to improve the lending experience.

Electronic Verification of Employment, Income, and Assets: The GSEs and government agencies have created flexibility on the process to re-verify employment pre-closing including the ability to use bank statements to show a recent payroll deposit.  In addition, they have tightened requirements on the timing in which income and employment verifications must be completed.  Using electronic verifications saves time, limits borrower interaction, and ensures compliance with new requirements.  New and updated partner integrations can help:

• Finicity: The go-to solution provider for lenders looking to digitize the mortgage experience through asset, income and employment verification. Through the integration with Encompass and Consumer Connect, digital asset verification shortens the underwriting process while improving security by removing the need for borrowers to submit statements or other paper documents.

• FormFree: Collecting, transmitting and processing physical income; asset and employment verification paperwork is resource intensive and time consuming. Faster than gathering paper documents and easy to use on any device, FormFree technologies significantly streamlines the mortgage underwriting process for both borrowers and lenders. This results in quicker decisions, higher borrower satisfaction and a more fraud-resistant loan process.

Ellie Mae is continuing to develop more integrations to support lenders during COVID-19.