Visionet BFSI: Recent Episodes
Visionet BFSI
Visionet Systems, Inc. is a leading digital technology solutions provider for the BFSI industry. With a unique combination of technology, digital operations and proprietary mortgage technology products, we deliver industry leading solutions to global BFSI clients.
As we all know, the secondary market is where the home loans and servicing portfolios are bought and sold between lenders, banks, and investors. Lenders sell a large percentage of newly originated loans into the secondary market, where they are packaged into MBS’s (Mortgage-backed securities) and sold to investors like pension funds, insurance companies, and hedge funds, etc. Read more
Mortgage servicing has faced some unique challenges over the years mainly because its processes are dictated by state statute as well as federal rules or standards. To scale up and ensure compliance with all the stipulated rules and regulations, many servicers are choosing to adopt uniform procedures across all states. But several servicers lack complete clarity and the understanding of how it impacts the bottom line and timelines. Read more
Ellie Mae’s Origination Insight Report stated that the percentage of refinances accounted for 51 percent of closed loans in the month of October 2019, which is the highest percentage of refinances since March 2015. This trend confirms that homeowners are taking advantage of the lower interest rates to reduce their monthly payments on their mortgage. Read more
Annual conferences such as ALTA One are usually great to network with Title agents across the industry and to get to know what matters to them. It is nice to understand business trends and key focus areas across title agencies. This year, some of my colleagues were at ALTA One and it was interesting and insightful to interact with title agents and understand their key focus areas. Read more
Title agents play a very important role in the mortgage process, that of helping the lender validate the ownership in the property and issuing title insurance.
Typically most title agents face a lot of month-end volumes as the workload is very high. Here are three ways in which title agents can better manage these situations: Read more
Owning a home is a central piece of the American dream. It brings in several economic benefits, such as the possibility to accumulate wealth, access credit through home equity, reduce housing costs through mortgage interest deduction, and gain long-term savings over the cost of renting. Read more
Mortgages – purchase or refinance – have a long to-do list of steps, and the oversight of any of them could jeopardize the process. But at a time when the world faces an unprecedented situation with the COVID 19 pandemic, the mortgage chain has been affected in several ways creating several problems. Read more
Most financial institutions, including mortgage lenders, have business continuity plans in place, but the unprecedented situation has created a vulnerability in fully addressing the unknown variables. Many mortgage lenders are seeing a spike in refinance applications after rate cuts by the Fed. A financial institution’s response to these issues in current times is one of the most critical aspects that will determine their relationship with their customers and employees in the future. Read more
The first week of October came with some robust news for the mortgage sector. The average mortgage interest rate on both the 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgage slipped giving a boost to the buying and refinance surge. Read more
Amidst the Covid-19 outbreak, while new home purchases are taking a hit, refinance requirements are going through the roof. In the recent past, mortgage companies have been experiencing stiff competition from other mortgage companies. But a bigger challenge has been the rise of fintech companies that is significantly impacting mortgage lenders. Read more
Mortgage lenders are required to work with several vendor partners considering that loan processing is highly labor-intensive and involves a lot of paperwork. While some companies consider working with mortgage process outsourcing company, the leading players nowadays prefer the Offshore Delivery Centre or the ODC model. Read more
The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is being felt far beyond the number of people who are infected. In the US, more than 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid since President Trump declared a national emergency. There has been a staggering loss of jobs that has wiped out a decade of employment gains and pushed families into crisis. Read more
In a recent release, MBA quoted ‘With unemployment rising to a record 14.7 percent in April, it is inevitable that mortgage delinquencies would increase as well. 33.5 million U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits in the past seven weeks, and with signs of economic distress continuing into the second quarter, mortgage delinquencies will likely further increase. Continue reading...
Mortgage rates have hit their lowest point in more than three years. This time though, they aren’t setting the stage for a highly competitive homebuying season. In fact, a massive shutdown of the economy has caused homeowners and potential homebuyers to back away from the mortgage market. As per recent figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) seasonally adjusted index, total mortgage application volume fell by 29.4% as compared to the previous week. MBA experts say that “homebuyers might continue to hold off on buying until there is a slowdown in the spread of the coronavirus and more clarity on the economic outlook.” Continue reading...
The need to improve the digital footprint and improve consumer experiences has always been felt in the BFSI sector. The current global pandemic gave it a major push. Financial institutions are increasingly reassessing their business models, core systems structure, and commitment to innovation while continuing to cater to their customers. Read more..
The effects of digitalization and changing business landscape have touched every area of life, and all eyes have been fixed on the mortgage industry of the US to see how it adapts to the changing conditions. US Mortgage Industry has been a large cooperative network. It is a major financial sector in the US. Read more..
For businesses like mortgage lending, which are very labor-intensive, Offshore Delivery Centers or ODCs are beneficial as they help to increase productivity while achieving cost-effectiveness.
With mortgage sensitized ODCs, lenders are beginning to see significant benefits. Such a setup offers them a capable resource base that is specifically trained on their processes along with ready IT infrastructure. Read more
Continued low-interest rates likely mean that 2020 will have the largest refinance volume in eight years, as per the latest forecast from Fannie Mae.
For the fourth week in a row, the Mortgage Bankers Association also reported an increase in purchase application activity, although it is still 10% lower than it was a year ago. Read more
All of us know that the mortgage business must cope with fluctuating volumes. Mortgage Lenders are often left working overtime when the volumes go high, scrambling to hire staff only to let them go when the volume goes down. Onboarding loans from multiple sellers can also prove to be time-consuming, leading to poor results and inaccuracy. Read more
The mortgage industry works in a paper-intensive environment. On average, there are more than 25 types of documents for the retail mortgage loan origination process, over 15 in correspondent lending, and over 10 in mortgage servicing rights. Read more
The mortgage lending scenario in 2019 is not very different from the previous year. We are dealing with quality control, compliance, and low profitability issues even this year. The mortgage volumes are not picking up as per expectations, and many are choosing to rent a home over buying one. Read more
We all have been talking about how the mortgage industry has evolved in the past few years. With the changes in the industry, technology and service providers have also brought in several changes to their business models. Read More
The mortgage industry is as competitive as ever. The good news is that for the last few months, lenders have been processing some consistently high volumes. Having said that, the real winners are the technology-enabled lenders who are leveraging technology to get the most from the applications that they are processing. Read more
The Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey Special Topics Report compiled and published by Fannie Mae, captured lenders’ responses on how they assess their digital transformation efforts in the business. The underlying context in doing so was to understand how digital transformational efforts are impacting the borrower experience that lenders are providing. Read more
Underwriting consumes a lot of time and cost for the lender. If the underwriting process gets streamlined, then as a lender, you know that you are freeing up the time of your specialist underwriters, helping them process more loans each day. This can have a direct impact on your costs and profitability. Read more
We recently published an eBook ‘Ways for Lenders using Encompass to boost Closing Ratio and Profitability’. We publish some excerpts from the eBook here. If you want to access the full content, Read more
According to the latest weekly survey data published by the Mortgage Bankers Association, the homebuying has increased by 8% and refinance by 43% from the last week, a 109% rise from the same week the previous year. Joel Kahn, Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting, also mentioned that the mortgage market has been strong in 2020 with 30-year fixed mortgage rates hitting its lowest since September 2019. Read more
Low interest rates over the past few months have ensured good loan volumes. If lenders want to benefit from these volumes, they should be able to convert these volumes to funded loans. Low closure ratios will only affect them adversely, as this will keep adding to their fixed costs. Read more