What’s Making Paperless Mortgage A Reality

The mortgage industry has already gone digital. Paperless mortgage, or e-mortgage, debuted in 2003. Since then, the US Federal Housing Administration and the Internal Revenue Service have been expressing concerns about electronic signatures, the fear of security and lots more about e-mortgage. However, the hope for a totally paperless mortgage process has been revived with new imaging software and security features. New imaging technology, which digitizes and automates the entire loan origination and processing task, has the potential to transform the entire mortgage landscape.

With paperless mortgage, it’s time to do away with reams of paperwork and delays created due to losses, misplaced documents, and snail mails. This has been welcomed by lenders who feel technology is the only way out, especially for an industry carried with public demands to cut costs and gain customer confidence.

Borrower’s advantage

Anyone applying for a mortgage is usually burdened with the prospect of a painful process. Documents need to be printed, signed, verified, and shipped to lenders. Then comes the agonizing waiting period. If the mortgage is denied, the whole process finds a new lender. In a paper-free system, documents can be scanned through an imaging system, and simultaneously viewed by the borrower and the lender. With electronic signatures being accepted by the Federal Housing Association on some loan documents, the document cycle time has been cut down to weeks from a few months. Moreover, borrowers are not in the dark about the fate of their applications and can simultaneously look out for other lenders as e-mortgage becomes a reality.

The lenders’ edge

For lenders, paperless mortgage is a life saver. Last-minute errors, lost files and of course, the countless file cabinets are now going out of the picture. Loan origination software features should include document imaging, delivery solutions, and electronic signatures and streamline the workflow and enhance user experience. As a result, lenders can cut processing costs, use assets optimally, remove ambiguity from the money trail, have better control, and comply with regulatory norms. Customer satisfaction rises, as you can be available to your clients throughout the entire cycle.

Twenty-first-century mortgage cannot continue to be a paper-intensive system. With regulatory norms and competition, cost cutting is the focus for most companies. Technology is the panacea which provides cutting-edge tools to free up personnel time, reduce errors, prevent backlogs, and enhance productivity. As US President George W. Bush had once put it, “You cannot continue to do today’s job with yesterday’s method and be in business tomorrow.”

Author Bio

Preethi vagadia is currently a Senior Business architect with the Service operations practice at a well-known IT Industry in Bangalore. She has worked in several process improvement projects involving multi-national teams for global customers. She has over 8 years of experience in Mortgage Technology Solutions and has successfully executed several projects in Logistics management, Logistics Integration, Reverse logistics, Warranty software and Programmatic Solutions.