Sagent unveils part of end-to-end system Mr. Cooper will test

Technology vendor Sagent rolled out a preview of its cloud-native servicing system on Tuesday and announced that it's making a few components available for use. Mr. Cooper, a servicer that holds a 20% ownership stake in Sagent, is on track to pilot the full end-to-end version of it by the end of the year.

Consumer-facing loss mitigation, business-side claims, and certain artificial intelligence-driven servicing transfer and document management functions are now broadly available, said executives from the company. A variety of mortgage companies have been testing parts of the system.

"We certainly worked in collaboration initially with Mr. Cooper, but there also has been outreach to the entire industry to understand what the components they really feel the industry has been missing are," said Perry Hilzendeger, executive vice president of servicing at Sagent.

Sagent aims to strengthen its foothold in servicing technology, going up against the recently acquired industry leader Black Knight. Sagent has named the system "Dara" in line with that goal. The word refers to the Celtic knot, which represents the roots of an oak tree. Sagent gave a one-time, debut demonstration of the system during the Mortgage Bankers Association's national servicing conference in Orlando.

"Dara is symbolic of the core root system that powers servicers," said Uday Devalla, Sagent's chief technology officer.

The platform, which Sagent plans to demonstrate for the first time at the Mortgage Bankers Association's national servicing conference in Orlando, will have a simplified task-driven workflow.

There will be six segments to the end-to-end system when it's complete: core, consumer, data, default, movement (referring to transfers) and AI. The technology released Tuesday bridges at least the last three with some crossover.

"You can take aspects of loan movement, say for instance, a bulk acquisition, bring it in, use the overlay of Dara artificial intelligence on that to evaluate the loans that you're purchasing, and then move that into your core system, even if it may not be Dara core yet," Hilzendeger said. 

Sagent singled out components it could develop on a standalone basis in choosing what to release first, he said.

"Those areas that can stand alone and interact with other systems are the main focus of what can be stood up today and delivered to the market. Once all the functionality is available in core, then we'll deliver the system all at once," Hilzendeger said.

The AI component of the system that's available helps drive a document management process that can be used in various portions of the mortgage process from origination to transfers and loss mitigation, he explained.

"If someone were to provide us with income documentation, AI would be able to extract that data and put it directly into a tool in real time," Hilzendeger said, citing one example where it could be used when borrowers with hardships submit such paperwork for loan modifications.

When used for transfers, the technology can effectively examine and match the data from the documents to the loan file and identify any advances that were already paid out.

"It can give you insights into the quality of the loans," Devalla said.

The other functionality released Tuesday aims to improve the process for submitting claims to the mortgage investor for reimbursement of expenses and advances associated with servicing the loan, Hilzendeger said.

When asked about the path forward, he said that more functionality would be rolled out through the year, culminating in the full system Mr. Cooper will test.

"It'll take a few months to get them stood up and running on the entire platform. Subsequent to that, then we'll work with the next customers to begin to establish integration and migration channels for them once Mr. Cooper is up," he said.