Lenders Do Value Technology

PROGRESS in Lending surveyed its 90,000 plus readers and they were pretty united in how they saw mortgage technology. In total, 75% of respondents view technology as a value add; only 25% described mortgage technology a necessary evil.

For example, Planet Home Lending, a fast-growing mortgage banker, expanded into the Correspondent space in 2016 through acquisition. They were immediately faced with a challenge related to manually indexing loan files. As the business grew from 100 to 200 units per month to over 300, they began to experience a huge backlog and knew they needed to find a better way.

Upon receiving an imaging file for purchase, they found they could only index 100 to 300 loans per month. They needed to automate and relieve the pressure related to getting loans through the loan acquisition process. They also needed better technology to support their goals for growth and scaling the business.

Planet Home Lending was up and running on the LoanLogics’ solution in 60 days, consistent with what was discussed during the contract negotiation process. Their implementation experience went smoothly, which they attributed to the expertise and flexibility of the LoanLogics’ team. One example of this occurred mid-way through the QA testing process.

As they were considering their overall loan acquisition process, they decided they needed to separate out audit tests that were applicable to the internal file review team and a subset of tests that were needed by the purchase team. The internal file review team needed to run tests to get to the initial seller STIPS, manage the process to clear those STIPS and push the information back into their loan origination system (LOS). The workflow would then pass the loan file to the purchase team to complete the process. LoanLogics staff helped them customize the LoanHD Investor PreFund product to accommodate their needs.

Keenly aware of the anxiety new technology can cause, the Planet Home Lending team also believed that the worse thing you can do is put technology in place and end up checking the checker (manually checking that the technology is doing what it is supposed to do). Through the implementation, testing and training process, their team gained the knowledge that created comfort and belief in the product, helping them maximize productivity gains.

During the testing phase, they were able to see proof that files were being indexed correctly and the accuracy of the data extraction. They decided to spend a little extra time on testing, training and internal documentation, but those efforts paid off in big dividends related to user adoption. They now can take full advantage of the streamlined process they created and focus on managing the exception process.

According to Rob Jannotte, SVP Production Technologies at Planet Home Lending, “what made this such a successful implementation was the right amount of training that went hand in hand with the speed and ease of implementation.”

Planet Home Lending plans to expand their use of LoanLogics technology even further by taking advantage of its built-in reporting capabilities to track and evaluate productivity metrics. As they expand their product line, they also are looking to expand their test library to support these new products. So there you have it, lenders do value technology.

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