Embracing automation for a frictionless mortgage experience

If we’ve learned anything as an industry over the past several years, it’s that we can weather any storm. And by embracing automation to accelerate and scale their workflow, lenders can learn to adapt and prepare for what’s next. What’s more, the truly digital mortgage process we’ve all been waiting for will be here before we know it. With this knowledge on the horizon, is your finger on the digital pulse of the industry or are you waiting in the wings for the market to pick up before investing in your technology? No matter where you are on the spectrum, your borrowers are preparing for their homeownership journey today so they can make a move tomorrow. Here’s how to streamline your operations and enhance your technology strategy to ensure you’re ready to strike when they are.

Reignite your operations by getting comfortable with the uncomfortable

There are a lot of misconceptions around when it’s the right time to invest in automation technology. This is especially true when the market’s slow, resources may be scarce, or when there’s a general uneasiness of the unknown. It’s certainly easier to continue doing business as usual, but that approach won’t serve lenders in the long run, and it’s not the experience prospective borrowers desire either. Embracing automation is key to getting through difficult times and thriving when the housing market shifts from slow to opportunistic. By innovating into the future, lenders gain the ability to scale as needed and provide the high-tech, high-touch mortgage experience today’s borrowers want.

Now’s the perfect time to assess your entire business and ensure your team has the tools they need to innovate. By automating repetitive tasks, this allows your most valuable asset, your people, to focus on actions that require their expertise and less on those that don’t. With this approach, you’ll be able to boost their productivity, dig into the human experience and prioritize the personal touch your borrowers crave. ICE Data & Document Automation™ makes streamlining the notoriously laborious underwriting process easy. By leveraging the ICE Mortgage Analyzers™, you’ll reduce manual efforts, improve consistency, achieve time savings and deliver an experience that will make you a borrower’s lender of choice.

Seamlessly integrated in Encompass®, this automation-ready data is available and ready for you to tap into so you can move towards an exception-based workflow, all while enhancing data integrity, reducing loan manufacturing times and remaining compliant. What’s more, with the ICE Mortgage Analyzers buyback protection, our customers have additional aircover in the event of a potential GSE buyback to rectify and mitigate any potential defects. This coverage is a differentiator, and with evolving GSE requirements becoming more commonplace, our customers have our support in resolving any errors.

Reinvest in your team’s expertise to reinvent your business

Any major innovation requires change and employee adoption for success. What’s more, to achieve a successful introduction of new technology and/or processes, buy in from your team is required. It can’t be said enough that having employee support is crucial to whether your automation journey will succeed or fail. By taking the time to create a strong implementation and support plan for your team, you can start reaping the benefits like accelerated processes, increased accuracy, time and cost savings, along with a streamlined workflow.

In our recent “Demystifying automated underwriting: Experts reveal the facts from fiction” webinar, industry experts lifted the lid on how internal alignment and a detailed implementation plan can make or break your adoption initiative. When discussing best practices, Suzy Lindblom, Chief Operating Officer at Arc Home LLC said, “You don’t just put the automation in, train and then go. You reinforce, talk about it and show the results.”

Reviewing your business processes as a whole is just as important as achieving internal alignment. Kim Hoffman, former Head of Mortgage Operations at SoFi warned, “Technology overlaying bad or underperforming processes just speeds up bad or underwhelming processes.” By reassuring your team of the value they deliver, especially when combined with the right technology, you’ll gain their support and provide them with the confidence to focus on developing their skills and prioritize the borrower experience.

Refocus your business strategy to ensure you’re innovating into the future

Ultimately, to become your borrowers’ lender of choice, you must meet them where they are. The American Dream of homeownership is becoming a reality for a new coming-of-age generation of borrowers who want and expect flexibility, reliable technology and a frictionless experience. According to our latest Borrower Insights Survey, we’ve also learned that other generations of borrowers and more experienced borrowers want this too. With automated mortgage processes becoming the new normal, it’s crucial to start now so you aren’t left behind. By taking the automation leap, you can open yourself up to opportunities that will propel you into the future.

At ICE, we’re your partner in digital mortgage innovation, and we’re dedicated to moving our industry forward together. Our goal is to help you deploy your most valuable asset, people, on the actions that require their expertise and less on those that don’t, so they can help innovate your borrower’s experience in 2024. We have the technology and resources in place to support you on your innovation journey and have a lot of exciting things on the way. No matter what the industry brings or how the market shifts, we remain focused on two things: our customers and how our technology can support you.