Keynoter: Paperless Loans Key for Underserved

Achieving paperless loans is the path to serving minorities and underserved markets, Fannie Mae's David Flaxman told Thomson Media's 7th Annual Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami in Wednesday's keynote address.Mr. Flaxman, Fannie Mae's chief of electronic solutions technology, said driving cost out of the mortgage process enables lenders to offer lower-cost mortgages to minorities, immigrants, and credit-impaired borrowers. He said mortgage lenders need to take note that emerging markets are "surging, not just emerging," citing statistics showing that even Midwestern cities like Des Moines, Iowa, and Wichita, Kan., have shown 100% growth in their Hispanic communities in recent years. He said deploying automated underwriting at the point of sale has increased hit rates for conventional loans to minority borrowers, preventing them from being shunted into subprime loans.