In the November issue of Mortgage Technology magazine, which can be downloaded for free
A press release crossed my desk this week that said, “Cogent Road, a provider of Internet-based applications for the mortgage industry, announced the launch of Business Spaces, the company’s new collaborative document management system. In addition to a fully interactive, end-to-end e-mortgage platform, Business Spaces automates work processes by delivering documents, tracking their status and notifying key workgroups of issues that may delay closing.”
The release goes on to describe what it means when it says e-mortgage. According to the release, the moment a loan officer orders a credit report, a Business Space is created and the applicant is notified via e-mail. The loan applicant enters a private, secured environment through which he or she can view, e-sign or upload documents directly into the Business Space via computer, fax or an easy-to-use virtual printer. The borrower can also communicate using micro-blogs and discussion threads integrated in different areas within the Business Space. With automatic audit logging, all borrower actions are effectively tracked for compliance purposes.
If the loan progresses, the Business Space evolves into a collaborative workspace enabling communication among both external and internal partners, with the loan officer able to invite such third-party partners as title agents, notary agents, appraisers and real estate agents into the Business Space. Parties may contribute relevant documents and dialog to the Business Space, and while communicating, photographs of all the parties involved are shown for a virtual face-to-face business transaction. However, the loan officer remains in control of what the external partners can actually view.
The release is very specific that the “e” process includes e-signing disclosures and the above reference to allowing notary agents and others collaborate within the tool seems to indicate that it could stretch to the closing table as well. I have a call with Cogent Road and a customer using the platform to discuss the details to see how “e” the system really is. Check out my blog next week to see how that call goes. I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop.
As a journalist that gets a lot of these press releases where vendors claim that they’re “e” this and “e” that, I’m reluctant to draw any conclusions here until I talk to all the parties. However, even if this system doesn’t go all the way to closing and the references to the e-mortgage center more around a paperless point-of-sale process, who cares? Isn’t that a benefit, too?
Either way this journalist will be jazzed to report on either a new e-mortgage player or at the very least a new e-collaboration, paperless processing player. Progress is always a good thing to report on. And the more vendors that enter this space the more lenders win. When eLynx president and CEO Sharon Matthews told me getting more mainstream e-mortgage adoption is about giving the lender more choices, I couldn’t agree more. If you only have one vendor offering “e” services how could anyone expect the industry to adopt?
We’re seeing more and more vendors put the pieces together either by launching proprietary systems or integrating with others. I welcome this movement, and once again invite other vendors to jump onboard. Any takers?
