Recognizing that more and more mortgage lenders are seeing the value in offering eClosings and working towards digitalizing the entire mortgage process, October Research LLC and Dodd Frank Update put together a webinar with two top-tier industry experts to answer common questions about what challenges lenders face when trying to get into the eMortgage business.
Fannie Mae Director of eMortgage Strategy and Operations Shane Hartzler and Pepper Hamilton LLP Special Counsel John Levonick offered insight about how lenders can address a multitude of those perceived barriers to getting started in the digital mortgage space and spelled out some of the benefits to doing so.
At one point, Hartzler referenced results from Fannie Mae’s 2018 National Housing Survey showing that one of the most common things borrowers told their lenders would make the overall mortgage process easier would be a reduction in paperwork.
“I’ve heard different stats that a mortgage process can generate up to 6,000 individual pieces of paper,” Hartzler said. “That’s one of the goals that we have as we move along as part of this digital transformation in the mortgage industry is how do we eliminate that and becoming completely digital, and certainly the eClosing process is part of that.”
Levonick offered an in-depth look into the technology aspect of the eClosing process and offered a unique perspective on how one could view a mortgage in that context.
“A lot of people have heard about Blockchain among the different technology being thrown around,” Levonick said. “The capital markets are getting very comfortable, currently, with the creation and the purchase and sale and trading of digital assets. And a mortgage is not much different. A mortgage is effectively a negotiable instrument that is aggregated and ultimately ends up in a security.”
The speakers also covered how lenders can use digital mortgage capabilities to improve their customers’ experience; how regulations vary from state to state; what opportunities exist in the secondary market; information about eNotes, eWarehouses and eVaults; and what “Bakkt” is and can be used for and how it can help lenders in the eMortgage space.