10 Things We’re Excited to Hear About at the Digital Mortgage Conference This Year
The water cooler gossip from the folks who bring you Approved.
It’s no secret that Digital Mortgage in San Francisco represents the largest gathering of the industry’s most innovative minds since the same conference last year.
Q: What is the Digital Mortgage Conference?
“A unique hybrid event that will devote 50 percent of the conference agenda to educational sessions from the industry’s leading players and the other portion to showcasing the new products, platforms, and innovations that are disrupting the buying and lending experience through live demos.”
In 2016 the event was heavily focused on the digital closing experience.
And while e-mortgages and remote online notary services have existed for several years, the first closing where every document (including the note, which requires a “wet” signature, in pen) was signed on a computer and notarized electronically in July of this year. To make it more interesting — the borrower, notary, and lender were all in different states.
So now that we’ve officially crossed the digital closing off the list once and for all — what ideas should we expect to surface, analyze, and conquer in 2017?
While we would love to explore what a closing could look like from Mars or how AI could radically change the homebuying process, we think there is a huge gap between the first completely digital closing and the lenders who are still requiring borrowers to use a fax machine or send revealing emails.
How might we go from 1 digital closing to 100 digital closings? In the age of the Equifax breach, how might we ensure the transactions are 100% secure?
We hand selected a few panels that we think will help get to the bottom of this
— —— THURSDAY — — —
1. Not Your Parents Homebuying Experience
8:30am — 9:10am
Our take:
What was your parent’s homebuying experience really like? Because it could be argued the process was actually easier 30 years ago than it is today.
- Call an agent, get in the car, see a few houses, pick one of them, sign paperwork with an in-house lender or local bank and away you go.
Has the rise of property search websites, mortgage calculators, lender marketplaces, and other tools helped to simplify the process?
This quote from Brian Boero of 1000watt hits the nail right on the head:
“…the mosh pit of people involved in actually closing a transaction — the people who appear, disappear, ask, send, re-ask, re-send and sometimes never even show their faces — still needs to be cleared out.”
What would it take to design an experience that was not our parent’s homebuying experience, but also wasn’t an over-optimized “mosh pit” of confusion, too? How must we design a trustworthy, yet lightweight future?
2. Rebirth of Wholesale: How Technology and Partnerships have altered the Industry
9:10am — 9:30am
Our take:
Wholesalers keep this industry alive and their dedication to technology partnerships will have a direct correlation to the overall consumer experience. We expect wholesalers to remain deeply entrenched in the technology space, designing useful tools that point more deals their way over competitors.
3. How One Community Bank’s Digital Journey Increased Customer Trust, Transparency, and Accessibility
9:30am — 10:05am
Our take:
Instead of focusing on the contents of this panel specifically, imagine how this panel might go down for your bank or brokerage. Could you step on stage and talk to these topics? Do you have a deep relationship with your technology partners? Can you articulate how technology services that you deploy improve the customer experience in a tangible way or not?
It’s not acceptable to present yourself as “tech-savvy” just because you have a website in 2017. The low-hanging fruit has already fallen from the tree. Technology is table stakes. Customers want to know how your systems and processes materially make their lives better and they expect every online interaction with you to be as simple as using Instagram, without you faking it.
4. Survey: Digital Mortgage Adaptation
11:45am — 11:50am
Our take:
Simple. Adapt or die. Didn’t we already mention the first fully digital closing?
5. API Strategies for a Digital Mortgage
11:50am — 12:30pm
Our take:
It’s only necessary to stay for this panel (instead of catching lunch or a meeting) if you’re a tech company, technology department, or member of the press. The concept of API’s is not only lost on most originators — they’re simply not relevant to lender day-to-day operations, but important for everyone else.
Sometimes it feels like we try to over-communicate using industry jargon as a kind of reputation metric to get customers to trust our positioning when we really could be more focused on how much better our ecosystem could be.
6. Discovering the Next Great Digital Mortgage Co. — VC/Investor Discussion
2:45pm — 3:10pm
Our take:
We might be biased when it comes to this, but it might just be as simple as scheduling a demo, talking to us at our booth, or watching us on stage.
We raised a $1M pre-seed round, led by Social Capital and Precursor Ventures, and joined by Graph Ventures, Bluesky Equities, and several prominent angels who believe in Approved’s mission to reinvent mortgages.
7. Robotics Process Automation & Machine Learning — What are the True Opportunities for Mortgage Lenders?
4:55pm — 5:30pm
Our take:
There is a whole heck of a lot of buzzword bingo going on right here. NEXT!
— — — FRIDAY — — —
8. Adoption & Implementation — What the Numbers Tell us
8:30am — 8:50am
Our take:
Have you ever seen one of those forest fire danger signs on the side of the road? You know — it reads from left to right, starting with green. Green indicates low danger. When thinking about it regarding the digital mortgage, the arrow would be pointing to the very far right of the sign all the way to red. Red represents extreme danger. The time has passed. We’re in the red.
9. Chase Goes Digital: Lessons on a Tier 1 Bank Adopting Fintech for Mortgage
8:50am — 9:15am
Our take:
Consider that Chase is represented on this panel by Colin McCormick, who holds the title of “Managing Director, Product and Innovation, Mortgage Banking.” Does your organization have a role even remotely close to this? Very much looking forward to hearing what Mr. McCormick has to say.
Also worth noting that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently said that bitcoin is a ‘fraud’ that will eventually blow up while at a conference last week at a time when currencies are trading at all-time highs. Consider it a treat to get insights from the country’s largest banking institution in this political climate.
*Approved Main Stage Demo*
10:09am — 10:17am
Our take:
Approved is on a mission to bring transparency, efficiency, and sanity to the mortgage experience. We build technology that agents, consumers, and lenders use every day to streamline the back office and provide a world-class experience for customers. We’d be honored if you made time for our demo.
We just recently launched a new product, the Approved Home Loan App. It’s a mobile-friendly, real-time, customizable 1003. Find out more about it here.
Hope you can make it on Friday! If not, contact us to get a private demo.
10. Transform the Borrower Experience through Data Validation
11:00am — 11:25am
Our take:
Imagine a world where an underwriter gets only what they want. They don’t want hundreds of pieces of paper. They just want the data. Think about it. Do we really need to keep sending original copies of bank statements, tax returns, and other documents to issue a loan when modern systems exist that can validate information in a matter of seconds without using a shred of paper?
This is an industry handcuffed by regulations, but that shouldn’t preclude us from improving old ways of doing business using technology and then updating rules, so they make sense given the modern day world is operating.
— — — WRAP-UP — — —
Q: What do you think is going to happen at Digital Mortgage?
We’re not fortune tellers. What’d we miss? What’d we get wrong? Did we get anything right? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a note or reach out to Andy!
