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Leveraging Technology for a Smoother Transfer Process

Computer BHJane Mason has applied her experience operating process-driven businesses to redefine client-focused service. Jane has worked with expert programmers to apply Web-based technology to automate complex processes in both the businesses she has run and those that license the CLARIFIRE application. A University of South Florida graduate, Jane is a well-respected entrepreneur. She was recently honored to receive the Tampa Bay Business Journal/Tampa Bay Technology Forum Joint 2012 CEO of the Year award. 

DS News spoke with Mason about what her perspective is on servicing transfers and how to prevent and avoid technological breakdowns.

What is your perspective on servicing transfers and what companies can do to prevent technological breakdowns in order to prevent scrutiny from CFPB?

First of all, I would say leverage technology in order to make it more effective. Technology provides you with the ability to ensure data integrity but it also provides you with the ability to transfer metrics or key performance indicators that are a part of the CFPB work flows or regulations, like transferring your data and looking for missing data and managing those errors and those exceptions.

Transferring work flow complete with no KPI images is the second part of it. As a result of the data integrity processing and the work flow processing, you should be prepared to manage exceptions for those errors in order to keep yourself compliant.  Because of the technological advances in web-based technology, you have the capability of exchanging data and exchanging workflow components and metrics in a very rapid and efficient fashion.

The next piece that I would add is you should always remember the customer. As you’re onboarding these new loans into your portfolio having the customer be notified of an online mobile accessible platform for them to engage and ask questions and participate in loss mitigation activities or requests is a very important part of the servicing transfers. That seems to be a little bit left behind as servicers try to synchronize and orchestrate the exchange of information in a very quick and automated fashion.

My message is you really have to leverage technology; you have to invest in it, and if you manage your exceptions efficiently during the QC process then you will be insuring compliance with the CFPB. Also remember to include your customer.

Where do you typically see these breakdowns occurring?

I think because the back-office systems, meaning the loan accounting systems, don't provide easy access to exception management, from a data perspective, I think that's really where the fall down is. You have to do correct mapping and during that mapping you have to access what stage each loan is in and you have to identify through a key performance indicator that the loan is in loss mitigation and trial payments are being made or trial payments have all been made and its ready for the permanent payment plan. Those are key metrics that really need to be focused on. I would say manage it from a workflow perspective so for example on day 5, were the responses to the borrowers or customers sent out effectively? If they weren't what are you going to do about it? Taking a look at the portfolio as it’s being on-boarded during almost as real-time as you can get is a very important part of mitigating the failures that people were experiencing. I think that the customer satisfaction part of it, like JD Powers points out, is it has been severely lacking meaning. They're not really included in the transfers and if they were in the midst of loss mitigation requests or applications, those steps are often over looked so I think providing access to that kind of information and visibility into a transfer process or a newly transferred loan is going to help everyone. The synchronization of all the exchanges in data, work flow metrics and communications is very challenging and it has to be paid attention to.

Can you prevent a lot of this by examining it during real time?

The data integrity can really be handled through your IT team because they are the ones that can handle the transfer of the data and would clarify error applications as to what data elements are missing. The QC part comes in with the review of the work flow to see how old is the BPO, when was the last credit report done, and again, back to where the trial payments being made and what address should they be told to send them to starting next month. I think you have to really pay attention to the review and the QC of the loans. Obviously, you can only do a sampling but the sampling will give you an idea as to how to see trends into the problems that you are running across.

About Author: Kendall Baer

Kendall Baer is a Baylor University graduate with a degree in news editorial journalism and a minor in marketing. She is fluent in both English and Italian, and studied abroad in Florence, Italy. Apart from her work as a journalist, she has also managed professional associations such as Association of Corporate Counsel, Commercial Real Estate Women, American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Project Management Institute for Association Management Consultants in Houston, Texas. Born and raised in Texas, Baer now works as the online editor for DS News.
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