“Fear is an idea-crippling, experience crushing, success stalling inhibitor, inflicted only by yourself.
– Stephanie Melish, Motivational Speaker
Can’t argue much there with Stephanie, isn’t it? After all, fear is the one obstacle that’s stopping most people from growing in their personal and professional lives. This applies to mortgage originators too. To the unversed, they are individuals (or institutions) who work with borrowers to complete a mortgage loan transaction.
For mortgage originators, their biggest fear is embracing automation in their day-to-day tasks because of the following types of fear –
- Fear of change – Some mortgage originators resist change and like things to be as they are.
- Fear of the unknown – Some mortgage originators do not know how automation works.
- Fear of upskilling – Some mortgage originators do not want to learn new things.
- Fear of losing jobs – Some mortgage originators think automation will take away their jobs.
As you can see, all 4 fears are interconnected in many ways. You will particularly notice that all these fears and resistance comes from not knowing how mortgage automation works or what it is capable of. That’s where this post can help as we bring you four compelling reasons to embrace loan automation.
Boosts Productivity & Efficiency
Who doesn’t want improved productivity? Especially in a customer-centric industry such as the mortgage industry, where borrowers want to get their loan approved within the shortest time possible. Unfortunately, the entire loan origination process is plagued with a myriad of labor-intensive and repetitive tasks which can take a toll on the loan originator’s productivity. Embracing an automated loan processing system will help mortgage originators save a lot of time on these repetitive tasks and focus on other mission-critical aspects that can help in closing more loan applications. According to a study, 78% of all types of businesses agree that task automation improves productivity.
Enhances Accuracy
Throughout the loan origination process, the applicant’s data is passed through the hands of multiple departments and people. As a consequence, the mortgage originators get different data from different departments. This makes it challenging for them to approve a loan quickly. Even worse, there are high chances of them approving non-eligible candidates and rejecting eligible candidates. Due to the manual nature of the different processes, data accuracy, reliability, and integrity gets affected. Automation of all the data management processes during the loan origination is the best solution to assure data accuracy across every department. In a study, 41% of enterprises mention that inconsistent data is the worst challenge they face.
Improves Fraud Detection
Just like any industry, the mortgage industry is not safe from fraud. In fact, the number of fraudulent applications is rising rapidly, and mortgage originators are constantly trying to employ different tactics to reduce such cases. Many loan originators end up hiring more and more staff to eliminate this issue, only to realize that their money is leaking from another hole. The easiest way to solve this issue is by adopting RPA in mortgage processing. This technology understands and informs you about the potential risks associated with a specific borrower using advanced predictive analysis and fraud analysis.
Offers Better Customer Experience
Customer experience is negatively impacted in two ways –
- Delay in the loan approval process
- Improper and delayed customer interaction
Let’s understand them one by one.
The entire loan origination and approval process can take a lot of time depending on the employees’ speed and the fluidity of the internal process. An inefficient team and an issue-ridden internal process can negatively impact the customer experience. Similarly, modern customers can contact you via multiple channels at any time of the day. They also expect instantaneous responses and solutions to their problems. Now, it’s not possible for your employees to be available all the time across all the channels. However, this can lead to a negative customer experience.
When you automate lending and its surrounding processes, you can experience improved customer satisfaction. For instance, by using chatbots, you can manage customer interactions round the clock. These chatbots are prepared to answer most of the simple queries of the customers and redirect them to human agents only when needed.
Conclusion
The benefits of embracing automation for mortgage originators don’t stop with these points. There are many more benefits such as minimal disruption to existing processes, easier and quicker auditing, scalability with an automated underwriting system, revenue forecasting, improved compliance, etc. With time and advancements in technology, automation is expected to offer more and more new benefits to mortgage originators. So stop fearing mortgage process automation and embrace it for a better future.
