Lykken on Lending

[David] All right, let’s get over to Allen Pollack. But the tech update, Allen, lots of, when I did that last interview with Jody and Richard of a Truv, I was thinking, where’s Allen? I got to get involved in some of these interviews because it was really good, especially in the topic we talked about, which had to do is how to do a better job of implementing. It’s pretty significant. Anyway, implementing technology, pulling out Mr. Rollout. So you’re Mr. Rollout.

[Allen] Mr. rollout, I can comment to that in a moment about the rollout, because I think part of my segment today will go there. Let’s talk about a couple quick things. I found this data, which I thought was pretty interesting. So get this, Apple just announced that they are releasing all these updates, right? New IOS systems, new Mac, new iPad and people are online saying if your wife is cheating on you, these apps, or these new changes will make it very easy for people to figure that out. Get this, there’s a guy, right? He’s in the UK. He is suing Apple for 6.3 million, which is the cost of his divorce. He blames Apple for his deleted text that’s synced to his wife’s iMac. They have a shared iMac, that’s how his wife learned that they were cheating. So I don’t know. I got that. We’ll never go through. But, you build an app and you get sued for everything. And by the way, this is an interesting little tidbit because I’ve got two startups that I’m involved in. One of them is an app. It’s not in the mortgage industry, but what I learned is how the Apple and Google store have a monopoly over the apps that are in those stores and the ability to pay for things in those apps. So if you have an app in those stores, this is why we don’t see a lot of mortgage apps. I’m going to tell you why it’s going to be really interesting. You have to pay 30% to those stores. You’re paying 30% to Apple, 30% to Google, and you are forbidden from having any way to charge people for usage of your app outside of your app, unless it’s a digital, physical product. So any services or digital products have to go through. Now, obviously, there’s probably a couple caveats, but they take 30%. Then in the mortgage industry, if you want to connect it to certain systems in order to provide workflow functionality, it’s another 30%. The 60% of your revenue is going out the door before you even bring a dollar in. That’s probably one of the main reasons why we don’t see a lot of apps in our industry. Now there’s probably apps that will provide functionality you don’t have to pay for. But I just learned that, oh, I’m going through building an app for the different stores and the financial model that’s supported around it. So it was very interesting, but let’s get over now to two other topics in the mortgage side. One’s actually real estate, but it has to do with chatbots. So, the first one, David, is a company called Aire. They’re a NASDAQ company. That’s A I R E. If I’m pronouncing it correctly, and the name of the company just launched a chatbot called Claire. It’s a generative AI chatbot. They’re saying it’s powered based on zero commission by your agents. So what you’re trying to do is replace the missing link they’re saying is gonna disappear. And what they do is they provide home buyers. You ready for this? Every step of the journey from property search to closing the deal supports 24/7 online. Claire will make the home buying process more efficient, enjoyable, and cost effective or efficient. It matches buyers with their dream homes using over 400 data attributes. Think about where it’s getting the data from. And provides insights into market trends and property values. So here’s the thing, mortgage lenders. Get up, get on the phone, get someone in your business development department and go connect with these guys. They need more. What is that again? It’s Claire C,

[Allen] Could you give us the web app just one more time? Yeah, it’s just, it’s Claire C L A I R E. And the company, the NASDAQ name is AIRE, A I R E. And that’s all you need to use that, and you can search, Oh, the actual company’s name is ReAlpha. So it’s lowercase r e and then capital A L P H A. And they just developed and released CLAIRE. So, you may want to reach out somebody, the first one to make that phone call, ready, one, two, three, go, you’ll be able to figure out if that’s something useful.

All right. So, David, the topic I want to talk about, and I’m going to bring up the implementations. What I was going to talk about is, I was on the phone with a gentleman the other day, a friend of mine at a large credit union, and he listens to our podcast. So he’s going to hear this, there’s a challenge in our industry where people say you need an all in one system. But the reality is that all in one systems could, depending on who you are as a customer, not everybody, hold you back. They can keep you from being able to integrate with innovative solutions or partners. They tie you to a road map. They put you in a position where you’re forced to leverage only what they have. You have to decide when you’re looking at your tech stack. Are you looking for an all one solution? Is that fit your business model? Or are you looking based on market changes to be nimble and to make changes and try new things out to mitigate your risk with one or two different vendors? And so that also goes straight along with the implementation component. Every time you need a change, you have a roadmap that has many other products built into it compared to a company that jack of all trades, master of none. So you’ve got somebody who maybe they’re a master at a lot of things, but they could, and again, this is not for everybody. It’s for certain people tied down to specifically a roadmap that covers everything they do rather than focus on just what you need, which is what that company provides. And then lastly. What does it take to implement it? How much workflow? How much change? How much impact to all the other departments that you have? How much impact do trainings cost for consultants? All those different things. So I know we’ve talked about these things briefly. Today’s just a quick, brush on the surface, but keep that in mind as you’re looking at your tech stock, think about what your future looks like. Not just today, obviously the financial aspect of it’s a big deal. But do you need a vendor that’s nimble? Are you going to set up once? And you’re happy with what they have because they’ve got a best practice that you want to adopt. And that’s it for today, David.

 

[David] It’s good. Good stuff, Allen.

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Allen Pollack, 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.