Mortgage lending was already facing changes in customer service expectations before the pandemic. Add to that, the introduction of the SDLT holiday increasing demand, remote working, quickly changing risk data, and customers requiring support through a variety of different channels: the impact on institutions has been profound and has accelerated the need to consider new approaches.
The pandemic has intensified the need to build new capabilities, especially as low interest rates are still likely to fuel demand in the housing market and for home refinancing for some time yet. The latest property tracker survey from the Building Societies Association, reveals that consumer confidence in the housing market remains strong. It seems that the tapering of stamp duty holiday and caution relating to job security will have consequence, but over-all the outlook is buoyant.
As we look to the future of this fast-evolving industry, there is a need to be able to scale solutions to better manage peaks and troughs of demand and create a modern lending experience for customers.
Since mortgages remain important contributors to a bank’s or building society’s revenue, they are an obvious early candidate for process improvement. But for many today’s predominantly paper-based mortgage loan process is plagued by costly delays and inefficiencies. Copying, scanning, printing, and manual keying of data still occur.
To meet the changing needs of customers, banks are turning to technologies such as multifunction devices (MFDs), mobile phones and tablets. However, these devices also introduce vulnerabilities. Customers’ non-public information (NPI) or personally identifiable information (PII) is at risk every time a mortgage-related paper document or electronic information is created, scanned, copied, printed, or emailed. To make matters worse, the increase in remote workers due to the pandemic means many of these processes could be happening outside of an institution’s secure network.
Of course, automation initiatives to reduce paper and manual work were underway even before the pandemic. A recent study by Forrester Consulting found virtually all companies have implemented some degree of automation across front and back-office functions. Lenders are no exception. Most lenders have implemented a digital mortgage application, but many haven’t automated their back-office processes yet.
While lenders have provided borrowers with online access to statements and other loan documents, they’re in the early stages of transitioning away from paper. This leaves many reliant on documents and manual tasks, and with the challenge of managing data across multiple, siloed systems.
Lenders can resolve these issues by accelerating automation initiatives. By applying focus to four key areas, they can become more competitive, compliant, and efficient in mortgage processing:
- Eliminate as much paper as possible via electronic capture.
- Reduce costs by transforming manual processes into automated workflows.
- Gain control of paper-based transmission points by enhancing security.
- Improve customer experiences by streamlining the exchange of information between business units.
When the mortgage process is automated end-to-end, lenders minimise the chance of human error, reduce the risk of compliance violations, and promote customer cross-selling and retention—all while significantly lowering operating costs.
5 Steps to streamline the Mortgage Loan Process
Uncertain times shouldn’t be an obstacle to improving the mortgage loan process. It’s more important than ever for banks and building societies to have an advanced, efficient, compliant, and customer-friendly approach to mortgage processing now and for the future.
Lenders can achieve speed, efficiency, and security by following these five steps to automate the mortgage loan process:
- Create a paperless process for opening loans. Don’t just scan images of related documents and manually enter the customer’s information into the system. With automation, you can capture and distribute all the customer’s documents and information from a variety of sources, transmitting it securely and automatically at the time of collection into the bank’s mortgage loan system.
- Replace error-prone manual tasks with automation. Speed up the handling and processing of loan documents, increase accuracy, and eliminate costly delays of manual rekeying with content-aware capture technology, automated data extraction, document type identification, image correction, blank page removal, and double-sided scanning.
- Be flexible when collecting information. Missing documents shouldn’t be a cause for delay. Automate prompts and allow the customer to send the needed document any time from any input source: scanner, email, fax, web forms, mobile, etc…
- Design a frictionless application process. Features such as auto-filling of loan application fields, automated data capture from scanned images, instant document transfer from branches to central offices and continual visibility into loan status increase accuracy and offer customers the digital experience they desire.
- Strengthen security and compliance. Making use of content-aware print and capture technology will also ensure documents containing NPI and PII can’t be scanned, copied, printed, emailed or faxed without authorisation. And, extend this same level of security to mobile devices and remote workforces.
The landscape is changing fast, and institutions have an opportunity to find new ways to compete and stay relevant in our digital world. As customer expectations rise, it will be ever more crucial for lenders to digitally transform their operations. Institutions will be more competitive if they leverage automation to transform the mortgage loan process and create a customer experience that leave a positive impact.
