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Retail lenders and industry vendors alike will tell you they are investing in improving the customer experience to capture and retain new business.
A result of a competitive market, choosing which lender to go with has become less about price and more about the experience borrowers have engaging with a lender’s brand. To deliver, retail lenders are focused on:
- Online and instant credit approvals
- Flexible pricing programs that meet the needs of the buyer
- Frictionless, transparent communication
- Real-time information status
With mortgage originations slowing in 2018 and the refi boom fizzling, correspondent lenders could also benefit from enhancing the customer experience to attract and retain new sellers and their portfolio.
Fast approvals for new sellers
Receive and decision new seller applications quickly via web portal
Much like the historical mortgage application process, today’s seller application and approval process are highly manual and fragmented, positioning investors as difficult.
Correspondent lenders that leverage an online web portal to receive and review new seller applications can reduce the time to decision from days to hours with an automated workflow working on the backend to help facilitate the process.
Sellers also appreciate a convenient one-stop-shop to submit an application to become an approved seller, respond to investor questions and upload any required supporting documentation.
Flexible pricing options
See more loans by automating flow and bulk based bids
Retail lenders, by way of product, pricing and eligibility engines, have attempted to maximize volume by returning and consolidating many different pricing options into one convenient digital location for loan originators to review and select. By minimizing the work required to explore various options, the lender makes it easier to capture volume and have both parties benefit from a frictionless transaction.
Likewise, investors who can automate all of their various delivery methods (bulk, flow and trades) in one location can increase volume and seller satisfaction by creating a flexible user experience for the seller to deliver loans using a single process.
Transparent communication
Create pricing transparency between buyer and seller
Offer comprehensive tools for pipeline management
A stronger relationship and ultimately more commitments emerge when technology reduces the manual back and forth communication over price between seller and investor. Create transparency with sellers about the eligibility and applicable pricing from the moment they upload their loans. Customized pricing options, that include a best efforts estimate, displayed in a well-organized screen for sellers to consider, makes it easy for them to lock into you versus another investor.
Equipped with a comprehensive dashboard of their pipeline sellers, investors understand when a loan is canceled, is ineligible, paired off, a price changes or a lock expires they can take the appropriate actions to move a new or existing transaction forward within the real-time tool.
Real-time transaction
Facilitate faster negotiations with real-time communication
They say time is money for good reason. From application, to pricing and rate lock, through STIP communication and condition clearing, real-time automation is the key to faster processing and greater returns. Without it, correspondent lenders might be left out.
When it comes to the capital markets, pricing and defect communication are interlocked and benefit greatly from real-time automation. The fastest way to funding includes pricing not only on “today’s” value but also historical pricing. Automated historical pricing tools ensure valuable basis points don’t bleed away due to information not being properly relayed to capital markets in a timely fashion.
Additionally, making sure any critical defects found within a pre-funding review, as early in the process as possible, automatically trigger a pricing update ensuring that a loan is priced properly. This leads to a greater level of certainty at time of funding.
Correspondent lending requires a highly specialized team and technology working behind the scenes to create profitable outcomes. Sometimes it can be hard to see beyond the ebb and flow of the day’s trades that are core to a correspondent lender’s strategy.
However, creating an experience that sellers want to keep coming back to, can drive preference. In a competitive market, retail lenders have realized the significance of the customer experience in capturing new business. Correspondent lending stands to benefit from it, too.
