5 Ways To Increase Profits In Mortgage Lending

If there was ever an industry in need of automation, it would be the mortgage lending industry.

The lending industry is plagued by time-consuming and error-prone, paper- and labor-intensive processes, front-end systems that do not communicate efficiently with back-end systems, and third-parties that are often not integrated into the process electronically. These problems are exacerbated by the huge volume of loans that are generated each year (nearly 5 million new consumer mortgages alone). “Advances in automation are moving lenders and vendors closer to where they want to be, but the truly paperless mortgage is still a distant vision,” says Christine Barry, an analyst for Celent.

“Not surprisingly, most lenders are dissatisfied with their loan processes,” Barry says. In a Capsilon Corporation survey, 80 percent of lenders said their loan production costs will continue to rise in 2015 as they increase focus on compliance-related activities, with 20 percent forecasting “significantly” higher costs. In fact, 67 percent of lenders have already hired additional in- house or outsourced staff to handle compliance-related activities, which are driving loan production costs higher.