[Allen] Hey David. Good to be here. Sorry, I am recorded. However, I’ve got great content so it will be good. In the mortgage world we’ve got more disconnected systems and a teenager social media app, especially when the wifi cuts out. ICE mortgage says, hold my API. They’re stitching it all together. We’ll come back to that in a second. Let’s talk about peeling grapes. Yes. At a Japanese tech showcase, researchers revealed that a great peeling robot designed to delicately remove grape skin without squishing the fruit is here. It lives originally developed to help delicate food prep. It’s now well peeling grapes. So, with Mortgage Tech, it relates perfectly. We’re out there trying to solve all the world’s problems, streamline loan processes. Japan built a robot. Finally, automation that can peel grapes and guess what? It’s solving real world problems or so they think. Alright, let’s talk about some news in the industry. CoreLogic, they have just rebranded. They rebranded as Totality on March 24th. They announced the rebrand, their reflecting, their commitment to uniting property professionals and emphasizing collaboration within the property ecosystems. Hats off to CoreLogic. Very interesting name. I’ll have to research more and see what it means. I’ve been involved in a number of naming projects, especially with public companies, and I gotta tell you, a lot of time, research, energy and money goes into when you do a rebrand. So, it’ll be very interesting to see the logo and understand what brought that out. Let’s talk about origination technology. So National Mortgage News had a couple great things. Number one, in ICE mortgage news technology, they introduced enhancements to the Encompass loan origination system. We all know that system, including two new analyzers. Aimed at improving data validation and also concurrently mortgage cadence launched what they call MCP Essentials, a version of its mortgage cadence platform, tailored for mid-size depositories, offering pre-packaged workflows to balance customization and cost efficiency. Moving on to a company David, I have not heard of the name is, that’s ZAVVIE, they’re a leading FinTech company and they’re bringing liquidity to residential real estate. They launched an AI powered platform designed to accelerate the speed of cash offers and funding. They’re giving home buyers a decision or a decisive competitive edge. It’s called Home FAI. It’s a system that gives the cash portal availability for buyers and strengthens the cash buy before sell program. So, check that out folks if you’re interested. And then ICE mortgage just rolled out brand new servicing features or function. So, when I just mentioned a moment ago that they’ve got more stuff coming, they do. So, at the ICE conference that occurred about a week ago. Here’s what happens. They talked about a unified platform vision, and I’m gonna explain folks why this is important and how it, it’s just so connected to where we are today in the industry. They announced their unified platform vision, which they said is their moving toward and integration platform that connects origination. So, Encompass and the servicing, remember Black Knight, that acquisition? The MSP systems. And what they’re saying is they’re gonna reduce fragmentation and manual intervention. There was a great analogy that they gave in the article. You wanna go check out that article, but post acquisition strategy, since acquiring Black Knight, they focus on Align Encompass and M-S-P workflows to streamline lender operations. They’re saying that there’s a huge emphasis on API connectivity and automation, data integrity, which is huge to our industry of all the data and docs, we still have to deal. To reduce exceptions and enhance scalability? We’ve been reducing exceptions forever. If the question is how are they gonna be doing it and then servicing innovation, so they now say that new servicing capabilities let lenders handle loan boarding investor reporting with fewer manual touches. Music to our ears, right? And then borrower. Central focus. So long-term goal is to provide a better borrower experience by making the tech stack invisible, delivering faster, smoother loan life cycles and Tim Bowler said, we’re not building two technologies. We’re building one experience, highlighting their intent to unify, origination and servicing under one ecosystem. That is huge and let me tell you my takeaways on this, David, every week we talk about do lenders have too many tech stacks? We spoke with Sue about how do we relationship counseling for lenders and vendors? Are lenders buying too much tech? Are they, chasing squirrels, shiny pennies? What’s going on? Number one, the vendor overload is real. We talk about it all the time. Lenders are drowning in disconnected tools. ICE’s move to unify, origination and servicing. Two major components speak directly to this industry and the wide pain point we have. Remember, post transaction on the servicing side is completely disconnected. There’s so much opportunity there. We talk about how relationships die after closing. This is a big deal. Also, whether you use ICE or not, the trend is here, platforms that reduce friction, eliminate swivel chair tasks, right? We used to call that swivel chair integration and centralized data are going to win. Lenders are tired. You folks are tired of paying for multiple systems, integrations, project management, you name it. Close ecosystem versus open innovation. So ICE is betting that their one connected experience, and this is not new, this is just what they’re calling it now, but they’re betting that their one connected experience is gonna be great for control, but it will raise some questions about flexibility in vendor lock-in. Meaning how many vendors can participate in this experience and will they be locked in or locked out? And does it align with our future, my opinion, my takeaway? Yes. If they keep open APIs and interoperability. Meaning anyone can connect in and out of that system with data they can transact, then it will turn into what everyone needs. It will not be a walled garden. And the bottom line, David, and my big takeaway here is it is a signal tech consolidation is coming. We’ve seen it. It’s going to continue. Lenders should demand. So you folks need to demand integration and simplicity, not just shiny point solutions. You need some flexibility, right? You need to be able to customize. If it is that walled garden, you won’t be able to go in the garden. You won’t be able to order the flowers. You won’t even be able to smell the flowers. So with that being said, consolidation, I know you’re gonna bring up David. It is real. It is going to continue. As a vendor, it’s very expensive to get into this space. It’s very expensive to put your tech stack together to be SOC certified. It’s very expensive to have a sales cycle. You don’t close deals on the vendor side overnight. They take 30 days at a minimum. There’s an entire process, the contracts. So with that being said keep an eye out on what ICE is doing. There’s other vendors doing the same thing, so it’s not new and they’re not the only ones and consolidating tech is gonna be a big thing. Thanks for listening everyone, and we will talk to you next week. And with that, back to you, David.
Allen Pollack
, Chief Operating Officer, Tech Consultant
Allen Pollack, a Mortgage & Financial Services Technology Advisor, is a subject matter expert in the mortgage origination process along with software product management and software development.
In today’s financial services push to all things Digital, Allen has been helping lenders and financial services solution providers align their digital transformation and technology strategies by removing the human element of risk, and automating processes that drive efficiencies and margins into profits.
Over the course of his career, Allen has co-created and developed technology business models that have birthed highly successful, innovative solutions and companies.
Allen co-founded and served as CTO of New York Loan Exchange (NYLX), a loan product eligibility and pricing engine (PPE) that made an immediate impact on the industry, scaling the company quickly and forming partnerships with multiple mortgage and financial lending companies. In 2012, Allen was a co-founder of a merger between NYLX and Aklero Risk Analytics that created LoanLogics, A Mortgage Loan Quality and Performance Analytics company. Allen served as CTO where he continued to bring new and innovative product solutions to the market that made a significant impact to mortgage lenders that reduced risk, scaled business channels, and grew profits in a very competitive and highly regulated market.
Allen is also is mortgage and finance technology contributor on a weekly live industry podcast, Lykken on Lending, and is launching a new podcast soon to be released, TechStack Radio, dedicated to technology and innovation in Financial Services.