Transcription:
Brent E. Boyens (
Hello. Good morning, Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to track four. It's, almost four o'clock, so I'm getting through the day. really appreciate you all coming today. Just a little housekeeping before we get this session started, be sure to make note of the fire exits in the room. It's really on here. All the sessions are being recorded and will be available on demand post event on the conference website. If there are any questions at the end of this track or any of the tracks moving forward, we'll take a quick Q and A, immediately after this last session, which is, I believe, five to five 30. There is a happy hour, in the Paradise Event Center South. So please come and have some refreshments and do some more networking. And last but not least, tomorrow morning's keynote is featuring Ryan Holiday, from, his podcast at 8:45. So, we all encourage you to come. So, with that being said, thank you all for joining us today for the state of elo. we have an awesome panel with, some great panelists here. My name is Brent Boyens. I am a lead product manager at, DocuSign. Make sure this slides are going here. I've been with DocuSign for a decade, working on the mortgage base for the last five years or so, which is the heartbeat, in this industry. And also worked on residential real estate the five years before on stage, with us today we have Jim Rosen from Mortgage Cadence. Jim's been with Mortgage Cadence, since 2010. He's currently executive vice president over, mortgage and DocGen and Management. At his conference last year, I learned that his nickname is E close and Rosen. So come find him if you have any ELO questions. Also on stage with us today is Dan Szymanski. He's from HSBC. He's been in the mortgage industry for 25 years. I got permission to say that out loud, so he's okay with me aging him. he's worked in lending and mortgage technologies over the, that 25 years and is currently managing, mortgage platforms at Hsbc. So, just to kind of give you an idea what we're gonna be discussing today. It's obviously the state of e close and we're not going to, come here and tell you, Oh, this is, the best thing, since sliced bread. You need to go fully digital tomorrow. We're gonna have an open and honest panel and open and honest conversation and kind of help you get to that end goal. Get to full e close, with baby steps or, or leaps, depending on how your organization, really wants to tackle this problem. We know the refi market has slowed. So, attacking this problem, looking at your operations, looking at some, efficiencies, in your business, it's a great time to do so. I came from, again, residential real estate and all of the real estate brokerages took this time of year when things started to slow down to implement new processes, implement new, technologies. And I think in this mortgage space, it's a great time to look at how you can digitize each step along the way. And especially in this E close space, when there's a lot of change management, this is a great time to take a look at those, technologies that are out there and start to implement where it makes the most sense. Obviously, Covis has changed, the business, we don't really need to talk about that everyone knows in the room how, how it's changed, the landscape. Back in 2019, we were talking about digital closings. As they were here, they're coming tomorrow. We went through covid, and although a lot more digital closings have happened, it's not scaled up to some large percentage yet. So we're gonna talk about how to get you there. So, let's kick this off with, you Jim. So can we talk about why you should look at this, this ELO problem now, why it's important to change, your processes at this point with the mortgage landscape as it is?
Jim Rosen (
Yeah, thanks, Brian. I think it's important to recognize where we are. We are at a time of incredible disruption, and with that disruption comes up opportunity. All of our lenders are looking for opportunities to do more with the staff they have, and to realize real benefits when it comes to borrower benefits, as well as their back end office, and invest in technology that's going to help them do that and either do the same amount or more with the headcount they have or repurpose those resources to more valuable components and deliver the value in the market. I think, it is absolutely an interesting time in the market as we see, lenders pivot their volume. There's some opportunities to make headway in digitizing the closing process that may have been, blocked either by incapacity inability to even pay attention to the technology because you were so darn busy, or because the kinds of products that lenders are focusing on today are open to additional or, new ways of doing things and less regulated or at least less, impinged by requirements.
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah, makes sense. And anything to add, Dan, from a Hsbc standpoint?
Dan Szymanski (
Yeah, So for us I mean, obviously Covid exposed some glaring weaknesses in the process, but, we really, part of our strategy now is we obviously are centered on the customer first. So, although we're, we are looking for those efficiencies in the back end, we're really looking for customer focus, customer benefit, the digitization of the process for the customer, making it fast, making it easy. And, so we were, fairly new to doing the hybrid process, but we really got ahead, We made that decision. We made some good decisions previously so that we got this launched way, way ahead of, or in process well ahead of the downturn that we've had recently. So, and it just, it really, this fits into the E close process just fits perfectly into what the strategy is for Hsbc right now,
Jim Rosen (
Well and I think it's really interesting that yes, we're entering into, or, currently within a purchase market from an economic perspective, it's an interesting market, but just from a sociological and environmental market, we've got nearly two years worth of market evidence and experience understanding how our teams can change and adopt rapid change and what their limitations and capacity for change adoption is. And I don't know about you guys in the financial industry, but our ability to pivot and adopt new things is somewhat lacking, little slow on the uptake. So I think what we're really trying to, what we're seeing now is, is that those lessons learned through covid, where, you just physically could not be in the same room with someone, and ergo paper processes became suspect. Those lessons are making their way through organizations to where you actually can have a conversation around stakeholder interest and participation and sponsorship where they mean something versus maybe, blowing in the wind.
Dan Szymanski (
And that's the way that we did it with hssbc, is we had stakeholder, top senior management stakeholder involvement and approval. This was the top priority for, not just for the originations fulfillment side, but also just all of mortgage. We had it as our top business value for our PI planning for multiple sessions. it was, it was critical. It was a known critical item that we had to, that we had to get in front of, or else we didn't, we're getting a little bit of a fomo, didn't wanna get left behind, with some of the other lenders out there. So, that's really the way we approached it, is that it was a priority and we put the time into it, and we had involvement crossed all of our functional groups and our IT team and mortgage cadence and DocuSign, and just made sure that we got it across the line.
Jim Rosen (
But it's not unrealistic to think that, among a group, within a lending organization, depending upon size, may have a really good sponsored idea to adopt digital technology or to move digitization into the closing process. And for it to take 12 to 18 months for that idea to actually have operational.
Dan Szymanski (
And that's what it took for us too. Yeah. Yep. And we really, we took the approach of, and I'm gonna steal a line from somebody in the opening panel this morning, the small bite, big bite. We decided to take the small bite approach. So we really focused on making sure that we had the right rollout process, and that we are managing the process to make sure that it's working for both, primarily for our customers, but also for our, closing attorneys and also the agents, and then also the staff as well.
Jim Rosen (
But I think one of the biggest things is that I'm E close Rosen. I've been here for a couple, a hot minute, as my daughters would tell me the technology has not been the problem, Right? Right and for the last decade, we've been talking about the fully digital closing will be here in two years right? So, it's about the people in the process and the stakeholders in the conversation and everyone being comfortable that not only is it acceptable, but it's also necessary and it has the right ROI for the organization. Like all those three things need to align, and nothing like a pandemic to really shine a bright light on some of those, myths and misunderstandings and maybe, some, some basic, old ways of doing things.
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah, definitely. That makes sense, And Dan, you mentioned fomo, that's fear of missing out for those you don't know.
Dan Szymanski (
I might be old, but I still know the lingo.
Brent E. Boyens (
And we had some earlier preliminary conversation. We were working on this panel and we're a little bit apologetic, like, Oh, we're just, getting started with hybrid. And I want to reassure everyone here, don't apologize for where you're at. We're all on this journey. We're trying to digitize as much as possible. It's okay if you come to a DocuSign, mortgage cans, whoever, and say, we're ready to go and wherever you're at, we'll help you get going.
Dan Szymanski (
And that's that. So, if I didn't want to imply that we feel as though we're, do, we definitely feel as though we took the right approach and it worked for us doing the going strictly with the hybrid first, and then we're gonna be looking at Ron and e-note later on, probably next year. iI's, this was the approach that we decided. I'm sure there's some lenders out there that could just go, big bite, I'll call it but that's just not the way that we wanted to do it. We wanted to make sure that we were taking each step along the way, making sure we were getting it right for our customers, for our partners in closing and for the staff as well.
Brent E. Boyens (
So, yeah, you talked about how important the borrowers are. We just saw, a couple sessions ago, like 82% satisfaction rate for in-person meetings on, some of these bi big important decisions. So, for your organization, hybrid and e-sign, what's not as vital as some of those notarized docs, and you still get that in-person meeting, that may be what works for your organization. You don't have to go fully digital, whatever, increases, borrower or retention, things like that. That's what you want to do. Right. And you'll get that feedback if you're a credit union or a large lender on what your borrows expect from you.
Jim Rosen (
And I think that's one of, if I take Dan's experience as, as the micro, expression, it's your personal, your bank, your lending institution. You have your own priorities and your own, success criteria. If we were to generalize that, I think it is that every lender's journey on the digitization path is personal, and it is unique. The success criteria are going to be different at Hsbc than it's going to be at a small credit union or community bank, or at a nationwide company with a large geography or a different lending footprint. So, I think one of the key pieces that I've seen, just in terms of how lenders who get success in this space are doing it, is being clear around what are the objectives they wanna achieve? What are the values streams? Like, what, what does it mean to be successful? Does it mean a good borrower experience? Does it mean eliminating post-closing defects? Does it mean I've gotta have eNotes? Right? Whatever that is, articulate it clearly and then organize the project around those objectives so that you can both implement it successfully and then measure that success. And then most importantly, take the second step based on the first success, right? Most people when they're having this conversation, may not fully understand it, but digitization of closing is inherently complex, otherwise we would've done it back in TRID with e-signature, right? There's a lot more parties at the table who have a say in what is valid, what is acceptable, what's allowed, right. As well as what they wanna spend their money on, Right? And so those constituencies are varied. You have to organize those around the value prop and deliver the value successfully.
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah, definitely. So, let's talk a little bit about what change looks like and, a customer that I bring up a lot for from a DocuSign and mortgage Cadence perspective is solarity. It's a credit union, out of Washington state. and they really adopted this, software in an ideal way, they weren't doing much digital, and then they took on a crawl, walk, run approach, which we preached to all of our lenders that come on board. they digitized, digitized, excuse me, and e-sign as much of the closing package on the day of closing as possible and perfected that made sure their teams were constructed in a way that they could do that at scale. Then they added the enote, and made sure that that was efficient. And they got a lot of financial gains from, from adopting the enote. And they're up to a hundred percent enote adoption on every loan that they do. And then finally, over the last, year, they've added DocuSign, Ron, into that as well. So they're doing over 75% of their loans fully digital now. and they made sure that the title agents and the notaries, they're all, educated and they knew the processes, and they knew how to be flexible on the day of closing so that they could have a high success rate, but they took a crawl, walk, run approach, from nothing to now fully digital closing over, about 12, 12 month period. And, they're doing it at scale, which is really exciting you to see. So for Hsbc, I know you're looking at this in phases. Can you talk everyone through how you're kind of attacking this E close opportunity?
Dan Szymanski (
Yeah. So we really, the first phase that we decided to go with, so we went similar to the company just mentioned where we wanted to digitize or get the, as much of the document package, e-closing for the hybrid package. so that was really our first step. And then we really selected, we have a pretty good footprint in New York state, which has closing attorneys. So, we really, we selected our top closing attorneys wasn't necessarily based on, on volume, because that wasn't really our first priority as far as our success measurement. We wanted to make sure that we would get some open and honest feedback and just attorneys that we knew that we could work with, that we had a good working relationship with. And that would, would convey our message and work with us to get the packages, get the customers on board as well. To date now, we started with a very small number and we've rolled it out to all of New York State and our, and our helac closing agent, our settlement service as well.
Jim Rosen (
Were there any hiccups or lesson learning you wanna share with the audience around?
Dan Szymanski (
Yeah, So I'll use another, phrase. I would say, measure twice, cut once when making sure that everybody's aware of the process, right? I don't think there was any intentional, going against the grain, so to speak, as far as a lack or friction towards adoption of it. I think it's just, it's the process overall for this is a lot of times when we're doing implementations, we have something that impacts, our sales team or something impacts our fulfillment team, or something that impacts the customer. E close impacts everybody. So, you really have to make sure that everybody's, everybody was on board. I, so, I don't wanna put it say that everybody wasn't on board, but, there's just old habits die hard. It's, we've all, those of us in the mortgage industry for more than two minutes are aware that we like to do things the way we do 'em. And it's sometimes a struggle to change that. And, it flows the same to customers and bank attorneys and settlement agents. So, we really just have been consistent with support from obviously our senior management, that this is the way we're doing it, this is our new way, it's a benefit. Primarily, again, we really focused on it's a benefit for the customer. It's, they want it, we have to do it, we wanna do it. And, that's just that consistent message. And we're starting to see that payback now.
Jim Rosen (
And it's a huge observation that you recognize that it's not just this one isolated part of the origination process. It's actually the culmination of an origination process. And digitizing this end piece has an impact upstream and downstream. And if you pay short shrift to that impact, you're going to fail.
Dan Szymanski (
And it's even, it even impacts the, our packages that we send for servicing and our closing team. And, so we really just had, you really have to make sure that everybody's engaged, everybody's on the same page. And, again, that's the small blades work for us, so.
Jim Rosen (
Great.
Brent E. Boyens (
From mortgage Cadence's perspective, Jim, when you're evaluating products, what should you be looking for? This is a lot to implement, it's a lot of change management, how do you evaluate, the products in this space?
Jim Rosen (
Couple different ways we could take the word product, right? Yeah. look, looking at the origination product to the consumer, I think you want to have an approach that says, How can I be as digital as possible with the least amount of disruption? right? if enote is a, is a critical path success criteria for my organization, then I want to focus on my product segment that allows me to take advantage of that, Right? Where we've seen success across lenders, just like what Hsbc has is, is to basically take and say, What can I do the same every single time? And, where there's differences, I want to keep that historically the same as paper. So, that's where you see a lot of success with the hybrid. We've worked a lot with customers in terms of identifying the contents of their package and enabling that in a configuration way to make that as digital electronically signed as possible, consult with them and come, converse with them and provide support for them to keep the wet signature things contained and efficient. And then as they bring over the title docs or as they bring over the enot, then work with them in a coordinated way so that they're tackling portions of their product portfolio in a measured and intentional way. When we talk about products as platforms and partners, one of the benefits that we have as a partnership at DocuSign is the rooms product allows that sort of flexibility, that personalized journey in the digitization, as opposed to it being an all or nothing. It allows the lender to express their own journey and adopt the pieces they're ready to adopt, both in terms of technology, stakeholder buy in, people buy in and change process. And, so you're, you're not left with this, Friday where Paper and Monday where e sort of, heartbeat type change that you have to do over the weekend. So, looking at good quality partnerships in terms of the product and technology that supports that journey in an individualized way. And then good partnerships with the lenders who are, looking to do more and take advantage of that technology.
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah, That makes sense and Dan, Jim just mentioned Rooms for mortgage, and I know you did a large evaluation of different products, that you could look at to attack this E close opportunity, what did that evaluation look like and why did you, go with, mc or mortgage platform and rooms from.
Dan Szymanski (
Yeah, I mean we've, we explored quite a few vendors for it. We brought it down to our top two or three. Really for us, the factors that really contributed to what the decision we made was, number one is we had existing relationship with DocuSign. We really liked the product, the rooms product, and it was integrated with mortgage Cadence. So, it helped to really, we really wanted, we didn't wanna have to have our style though. We really, I've been saying, we've been focusing on the customer. There's the butt dot, dot dot. People still have to make it work, right? So we, so we didn't want to have our staff that has to use it, going on multiple platforms and, saving docs to their shared drives or wherever, uploading docs. So, the integration with, with MCP was really one of the critical decisions for it. And then again, Jim mentioned the flexibility within how you can set up the packages and write the rules for the docs and things like that. So, and knowing that, again, we were gonna be taking a phased approach and kind of a micro phased approach at some points just the flexibility and the ease of use was, was really a critical point for us so.
Brent E. Boyens (
Great. I know we've talked about some early successes and you had some metrics around that. Is there anything you can.
Dan Szymanski (
Yeah, so we're still working on, I'd say more of our, operational metrics, but, really one of the top things for us is the closing packages. the majority of them have about a 60% e-sign versus the full package. So that's been really great for us. We've gotten really good feedback from the customers who have been using it. We're continuing to work on making sure that we can expand that set so that we can get that up even higher. There's gonna be some until we do, run, and obviously you note that there's always the collateral net that's gonna have to be a future phase. But, we, we just built in the process that as additional documents have been identified, either because, we didn't have a perfect project implementation, so there were a couple misses there. But, we have a, just a process in place to continue to build that package out so that we can continue to build out what's, what's gonna be e-sign versus the wet sign.
Brent E. Boyens (
That's great and good segue. And if you're taking notes, this is probably one of the best times is take a draft down a few notes we're, cuz we're gonna get into implementation. one of the most difficult things, with this eco space is implementing the software and doing change management and convincing teams that this is going to be more efficient once you, roll it out at scale. So Jim, can you talk to the group about, suggestions, for, how to approach implementation in this space? how to mold minds change attitudes.
Jim Rosen (
Yeah. I mean it has a little bit of political baggage, but I mean, you're really changing hearts and minds. Across an organization. Like I said, it's not an isolated event. It's really the culmination of a process. And, so digitizing closing is really a bit of an evolution of lending and you have to really appreciate its impact. So, to digitally execute something, what are your upstream dependencies and your stakeholders, they're feeding into that. And, so they need to be at the table to make sure that they're bought in, they're participating in, they're supporting, what's the downstream impact of having electronic versions of something that was previously paper and what are those changes? And, then who's at the table to say how that's acceptable, Right? So, clarifying your stakeholders, making sure you have clear objectives around what success is. And then, I mean I can't emphasize this anymore than Dan has is to take a measured approach. If you try to revolutionize your indu your, your lending process overnight, you're going to hit a fairly large brick wall and you're going to, uncover some friction points and muscle memory that you know are going to undermine your success. So, slow measured, intentional implementation is really the key word. And build upon previous success and understand that your journey for digital closing is going to be different and it's not the same as everyone else's. Your value prop and your value streams are different. Allow that to be personalized and then build your own success metrics.
Brent E. Boyens (
Yep. That makes a lot of sense. And Dan, it was a long process to just get this software approved. Once you did, how did you get all the stakeholders on the same page and how are you doing that moving forward.
Dan Szymanski (
Yeah, So, we made it our top strategic priority for, like I said, multiple multiple periods. and just making sure, and I think we've said this a couple times between the two of us already, just making sure that we had all the right stakeholders and of course we had, again, senior management buy-in that this was our top priority for this year for much of the year. and just getting all the right people around the table to make sure that there weren't any faults in any of the process, steps along the way. And again, just making sure that we were measuring what we had, what we wanted to achieve as part of these steps. And we've gotten past our first phase in New York and I've got, one of the sales managers coming to me saying, Hey, when can we roll it out to my team? Because, we've got some word on the street that it's a good product and a good process.
Jim Rosen (
You got some internal marketing.
Dan Szymanski (
Yeah, yeah. We got some internal.
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah.
Dan Szymanski (
Being back in the office has helped cuz he sits right behind me.
Brent E. Boyens (
You need those champions.
Dan Szymanski (
Yes. Oh yeah, definitely. Absolutely and there's, you just have to, a lot of times with these types of changes, you have to have the okay cuz the response from people is gonna be, Yeah, you want me to do this, but what, So what? Yeah. what's, why, what's the benefit for us? And again, outside of the hard sell of the look, this is a customer benefit. just being able to explain and show them that this is gonna be a process improvement and, that it's in the long run, it's gonna make, make their jobs easier and it's happy customer, happy, happy life.
Jim Rosen (
It's a little variation on this a little bit, but I think at the end of the day, it's not, it's not technology adoption. Yes, it is technology adoption, right? But, but it's people management, people change. There's a lot of pent up muscle memory in the mortgage industry around how a closing looks and feels and how it should work. And so what we're seeing here is the, is the expression of that muscle memory and just the friction there, right?
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah, definitely and as you said before, the technology is there, it's just, it's been there. Gotta figure out a way to adopt it. Right? And you can be creative in a lot of ways in the way you adopt it. There's, you go back to Solarity customer again. one of the coolest things I learned from, from that team is, how they handle the day of closing it's fully remote. I'm like, Well, how do you get 'em the keys? You know what they hand over to the realtor, they said, do the closing at the house. And they do what called a celebration closing. So the realtor has flowers, has a little gift for their, their client and they, get to celebrate this great moment, which, I've closed on a few houses and sitting in the title office, which is, not the prettiest place. My realtors there shake hands and we don't see each other for the next five years that's not a great moment, but these celebration closing, what a great idea. And, it's because they've adopted the software, they figured out, how they can, best implement it in a way that their borrowers, will return their credit union. That's how they operate. So, with this technology, are you guys seeing, other gains and other opportunities, that that you wouldn't see if you weren't digital?
Jim Rosen (
I'd ask Dan maybe if you've seen some of those materialize, unanticipated benefits in your implementation yet?
Dan Szymanski (
Probably, not yet. Not yet. We're pretty, early again on in the process, so
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah, that makes sense.
Jim Rosen (
I think, I mean, I think that's one of the thing, you have your intention, you have your plan, you know what your metrics are gonna be, but once you do something newly different, you're gonna have a different way of thinking about how to do that. And, Solarity found a way to still have that in person experience that the in person closing seem to manufacture. Yep. Right? How could they do that in a different way and still get all the benefits of the digital experience once you've got the technology and the process and the wins, you've got energy then to reimagine those things.
Brent E. Boyens (
Yeah, definitely. So, just to recap really quick, there is a path forward for e-closing, with Mortgage Cadence and DocuSign. We, you may have heard referenced a few times, we do have our Rooms for mortgage product, which is an e-closing product. It's, integrated with mortgage cadence and other technologies, e original for Enot. And we'd love to have a conversation with you if you're interested in that product. You can go to docusign.com/industry, and just find the mortgage section. You get a lot of information on our mortgage products you wanna do a plug for mortgage cadence?
Jim Rosen (
Hey, mortgage cadence platform, the newest and best LOS in the industry. I'd invite you to go to mortgage cadence.com if you have any questions. We're here present, we've got a meeting room and can sit down and talk to you about how we can get you over onto our platform with all the connected partners that we have, like DocuSign and Dan will give you all the dish about how awesome it is to work on the mortgage getting platform.
Dan Szymanski (
I'd be happy to talk to anybody about the new platform. Yep.
Brent E. Boyens (
Well, great. Thank you both so much for joining me today and thank you all for, coming. If you have any questions, please find us. We'll, be in the meeting room, We'll be at the events tonight. So we really appreciate you, you coming today. Thank you.
Dan Szymanski (
Thank you.