Time To Reassess Your Mortgage Operation. Are Fulfillment Services an Option You Need to Explore?
by: Bill Dolan, CMB, AMP
Many financial institutions are taking a hard look at their mortgage lending business and are beginning to ask themselves the following:
Is the mortgage lending business profitable to us?
Are we using the mortgage as a defense weapon to prevent our borrowers from exiting to our competitors?
With very little housing inventory out there today and margins decreasing downward, lenders primary targets are looking to significantly reduce expenses usually in the areas of staff reductions and benefits as well as reexamining certain functions that can be outsourced and performed, lowering their cost per loan while retaining a loyal customer base. This allows the lender in some cases to reassign and deploy employees to far more needed areas within the bank or credit union.
Here are just four specific areas where cost-cutting should be considered and where SCA will manage to keep your operations running at peak performance throughout the life cycle of your mortgage portfolio. Our mortgage consultants and subject matter experts will work with your mortgage team to optimize your operations in these areas and extend the life of the loan within these areas, to eliminate risk and potential exposure within your organization while maintaining excellent relationships and standards with your Investors and Aggregators.
1) Systems Administrator Role – Ask yourself if this is a 40-hour per week position or can this function be accomplished on an as-needed basis? SCA’s technologists can provide the necessary day-to-day support required to identify User solutions, reconfigure your LOS/PPE systems, implement new enhancements, new products, resolve bottlenecks and perform testing activities based on system changes while assisting with user acceptance testing (UAT). SCA provides a minimum of 20 hours per month and deliver at half the cost of current industry salary range for performing this function.
2) Rate Lock Desk Analyst - Secondary Market – SCA’s secondary market analysts accurately and completely review, process, lock, extend, and revise mortgage rate lock requests submitted by mortgage loan officers or your operational team members. Our analysts thoroughly comprehend investor policies and convey the pricing for all mortgage products while maintaining a customer service focus in an extremely fast-paced multi-tasking and deadline driven environment. Are you leaving money on the table due to inexperienced staff performing this function for you?
3) Investor Accounting Support Analysts – SCA’s incumbents in these positions are well-seasoned and experienced professionals accountable for reviewing and reconciling principle & interest (P&I) and tax and insurance (T&I) custodial accounts, clearing accounts and balance sheet accounts for investors including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHLB and Ginnie Mae. They can assist you with service release reconciliations for whole loan sales and will typically identify and transfer funds in accordance with their reconciliations. They continuously review your processes and procedures, can train your employees and make recommendations to improve quality and services. Our team can assist as needed with reporting loan level/pool level data and remit funds to Investors on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis in accordance with Investor guidelines and timelines.
4) Default Management: Collection/Foreclosure/Bankruptcy/REO Services. SCA has partnered with a national law firm who represents financial institutions, national lenders and servicers in both residential and commercial mortgage and real estate matters including: foreclosures, bankruptcies, eviction, collections, title and litigation. They provide our clients with extensive legal and corporate compliance representing them with a partner who understands real-world challenges and pragmatic decisions facing your institution today. Don’t end up with having to repurchase/buyback a mortgage loan(s) from Investors due to a lack of experience dealing with Investor guidelines and default reporting.
These are just a few of the fulfillment services that SCA can deliver. Industry statistics have demonstrated that lenders who make the decision to utilize fulfillment services in these areas can save approximately 20% annually, especially during volume fluctuation that allows our clients to address scale, and significantly reduce expense.
If you are interested in addressing these or other fulfillment services that Spillane Consulting Associates offers, please contact Bill Dolan, Director at (617) 694-2617 for a free consultation or visit our website at: www.scapartnering.com for more information in partnering and outsourcing with SCA.
