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A tech revolution is underway in the mortgage industry as financial institutions look to meet consumer and investor demand for transparency, accountability and efficiency. But agile technology by itself won’t be enough to meet this challenge. To win in this environment, financial institutions need to partner with a trusted subservicer who combines innovative technology with outstanding attention to customer service.
LoanCare, a ServiceLink company, is leading in the development and deployment of customer-focused technology for its clients, which include mortgage companies, capital market investors, credit unions and banks.
“Our mission is to Exceed the Expectations of the clients for who we service,” said LoanCare President Dave Worrall. “We create brand value for our clients by building enduring, loyal, relationships with their borrowers.”
The value of customer service is instilled from LoanCare’s orientation of new hires to the ongoing training it provides for long-time employees and is emphasized in off-site management meetings, town halls and communications from company executives. It is a pervasive, top-down focus that influences how the company sees its role in helping clients and the consumers they serve. And that approach continues to pay dividends in the kind of innovation the company is known for.
A CLEAR ADVANTAGE
For example, listening to clients and understanding their needs led LoanCare to develop proprietary systems like its borrower portal, MyLoanCare, which is available in English or Spanish.
Borrowers now have an easy way to schedule payments, look at their loan history and ask questions about their loan. The borrower portal features a built-in audio/visual application of an avatar speaking either in English or Spanish and addresses scripted questions when the borrower is experiencing payment challenges. The site also allows the borrower to upload an insurance declaration document to demonstrate collateral coverage and to avoid lender-placed insurance.
This borrower portal can be private label, so that clients build brand value through continued engagement with their borrowers.
And LoanCare’s mobile platform lets borrowers access loan information from smartphones and tablets, improving their experience as they interact with LoanCare on their favorite devices.
Another example of smart solutions is LoanCare’s TeleVoice system, which is available in English and Spanish and provides a complete solution for borrowers to self-serve through a telephone call. However, if the borrower wants to talk to a customer service advocate, they can choose to be transferred to either the company’s English or Spanish team.
“The Spanish-speaking population continues to grow nationwide and we experience that through our call center. Some of our clients have Spanish-speaking mortgage borrowers and have requested we have technology and advocates to address this population,” Worrall said. “We listen to our clients, and hence within our call center we have a dedicated and trained group of advocates conversant in Spanish.”
In fact, the investment in Spanish language services and solutions will be a critical differentiator in the years to come. While the overall homeownership rate in the U.S. continued to drop in 2016, the homeownership rate among Latinos increased to 46%, up from 45.6% the year before.
Latinos were the only ethnic demographic with an increase in their homeownership rate and they also lead the nation in household formations, with a net increase of 330,000 households in 2016.
Providing exceptional customer service to Latinos homeowners will be a game-changer for financial institutions as they seek to increase their reach in this demographic.
MORE INNOVATION AHEAD
Going forward, LoanCare is driving by 2020 to deploy automation in the form of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) scripting, work flow tools and partner automation capabilities. The company is moving to cloud models for several key areas and automating repeatable processes. LoanCare is currently beta testing RPA in one of its functional areas. That knowledge will enable a much broader and informed roll-out.
“Our approach will allow us to place controls around critical business tasks, increase efficiencies, and prepare to scale simultaneously,” Worrall said. “This investment and provocative move will enable our people to do more with less through automation throughout functional operation areas.”
By focusing on exceptions identified through automation, LoanCare can improve services and reduce risk.
“We think RPA allows us to perform our work faster and with less errors,” Worrall said. “Because errors are what create work for mortgage servicers, we expect RPA to materially reduce our cost to service loans, allowing us to provide our clients with even more cost effective pricing of our services.”
LoanCare is also moving forward on a next generation document management and imaging platform, increasing its data capabilities for greater insight into customer needs, adding new products and expanding mobile capabilities with some exciting new features.
For many in the servicing industry, developing these kinds of innovative solutions would be hindered by legacy systems customized for previous versions of regulations. But LoanCare has been careful not to customize systems in a way that prevented it from upgrading or moving to new or more modern platforms.
“We do not face the significant legacy baggage issues that are common across the industry. Instead, we are committed to having an agile and flexible platform that enables us to change with the regulatory environment and customer needs,” Worrall said.
THE BENEFIT FOR INVESTORS
All this innovation doesn’t just benefit the end consumer — investors reap the rewards as well. Many of the tech advances that keep consumers happy had their genesis in the regulatory changes of the last decade.
Before the financial crisis, servicers were gatekeepers to the ownership information of the investor; if investors wanted something, they had to call to get a report, for which they would be charged.
Today, LoanCare gives investors freedom of access to their information. If they want to pull documents off the company’s repository of images, they have that option. If they want to see certain oversight of information, they simply go to its client-facing website to view policies and procedures, SSAE-16, annual reports, rating agency reports, etc.
“We provide tools today that give our investor clients greater transparency and filtering to access data in so many ways and to do so remotely. No longer is it required to call us and for us to be the gatekeeper of their information; which they own,” Worrall said.
LoanCare has developed a number of proprietary systems so clients have self-help technologies to access loan data and track and trend their portfolios. And the company releases enhancements throughout the year, as opposed to a once-a-year major revision that requires considerable internal and external training and reprogramming.
A STRONG FOUNDATION
LoanCare has been a pioneer in the subservicing business, operating first as a publicly held thrift in the 1990s. Now one of the country’s three largest subservicers, the company combines its understanding of bank culture with the power of its publicly held NYSE parent company, Fidelity National Financial. LoanCare has access to use many of FNF’s products and services and their shared services interface with LoanCare’s internal services, such as accounting, legal, finance, HR and compliance.
As a public firm, Fidelity requires its significant subsidiaries, such as LoanCare, to comply with the standards and compliance of a public entity, so LoanCare is rated by S&P, Moody’s, Fitch, DBRS and Kroll, something no other subservicer can say.
Adhering to this higher standard is typical of LoanCare’s commitment to providing the very best people, processes and technology for financial institutions and consumers.