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The Tech Reshaping Mortgage Lending · Market Pulse

• 0:02
  Welcome to a special edition of Market Pulse from Equifax,
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  where we break down what's shaping the mortgage industry today and what happens
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  next.
• 0:15
  Welcome everybody to a special edition of the Equifax Market Pulse
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  podcast. We are here at MBA Annual25 in Las Vegas.
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  My name is Wendy Hannah-Olson.
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  I am Senior Vice President Digital Alliances and Strategy Execution at Equifax.
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  With me is Jonas Moe,
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  Senior Vice President of Marketing at Ice Mortgage Technology. Jonas, welcome.
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  Great to have you.
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  Thanks Wendy. I'm happy to be here.
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  Fabulous. So there's a lot happening at MBA annual this year. Yes.
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  So what has you most excited?
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  Well, I think the thing I'm most excited about is that there's energy here.
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  I think we've been in a tough period for the last couple years,
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  so the fact that people are excited and looking forward to the future it just
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  brings a whole new level of energy to the conference.
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  With that excitement. Have you done anything new?
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  Well, yeah. There's a lot that we're talking about here at annual.
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  We just just came out with some new technology that we're really excited
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  about. We're talking about our data analyzers.
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  We're talking about an ai component that we introduced to customer support for
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  MSP. Mm-Hmm .
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  There's a lot of fun and exciting things that people are going to take advantage
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  of. Hopefully in 26 that'll change the industry. Oh.
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  That's fabulous. So,
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  with our industry facing the headwinds that it's been facing and the challenges
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  you know, affordability comes to mind, and so on,
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  so forth being at the forefront of technology,
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  what are you seeing lenders do to help combat?
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  We were talking before the session began.
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  We've both been in this industry for a little bit of time.
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  I am really interested to see where the industry goes in terms of adopting
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  a real end-to-end look at how we treat borrowers.
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  I think that's something that people are right on the verge of attaining,
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  and that's really interesting to me.
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  I hear more talk about trying to have this complete borrower experience where
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  it's not just about the front end POS,
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  it's not just about the backend servicing,
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  but it's treating a borrower for the whole loan lifecycle.
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  That's really fascinating to me. I,
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  I've been waiting for this to happen for years and years and years, and I,
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  as I walk around and as I talk to people,
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  the conversations are naturally going to that complete borrower experience,
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  which I am stoked to hear.
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  Yeah. I can see your excitement. Yeah. for sure.
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  How do you envision all of that excitement and the automation and the end-to-end
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  that you're mentioning, but yet still have the human element of the consumer?
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  I think that for the last couple years, more than that, last five or six years,
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  everyone equates the front end of the process.
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  That POS process to the consumer and how we engage with the
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  consumer on that level. It's great.
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  We've had some amazing technology breakthroughs and amazing vendors that have
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  brought new automation to that forefront. That's just a portion of it.
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  I think we should be thinking about the consumer holistically.
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  We should be trying to take the grind out of the process that happens in the
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  middleware that happens in the middle of the process. Underwriting, processing.
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  Consumers shouldn't have to be asked for documents over and over again.
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  There shouldn't be that, that really difficult part in the middle of the loan.
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  Where I think we should be putting our attention is automating the middle part
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  and making sure that we are available to the consumer on the front end,
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  available to the consumer as they have questions. You gotta remember,
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  this is still the biggest transaction that anyone's ever going to make in their
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  life. Right. Whether it be purchase or refi. This is a huge deal. So,
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  for us to invest time and the consumer isn't a waste, we want to,
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  as an industry,
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  close the gap in terms of the amount of time that it takes to originate a loan.
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  The consumer doesn't necessarily want that. They want a home. Right?
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  And they want their questions answered.
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  They want to feel confident as they go into that home purchase or refi. So,
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  as much as we can reinvest in the areas where the consumers have questions,
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  they raise their hands, equip loan officers to be, be intelligent, engaged,
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  advocate for the consumer,
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  and take away all of the grind that goes with originating a loan that we put on
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  the consumer. That's where we're going to benefit.
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  Take away the grind and be there for the consumer to answer the questions.
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  So part of what I'm hearing is, is you might consider data to be very important.
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  .
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  Yes. Data, and I, I'm sure we'll talk about it in other areas. Data's huge.
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  Data.
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  Is huge.
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  So data is huge. because It, it does allow for that streamlining the process.
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  The reality is, I,
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  I met with our friends at Freddie Mac last night and had long conversation with
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  Kevin Kaufman and Christina Randolph. Yeah.
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  And they've been great partners to us,
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  and we continue to talk about the power of data. Yes. there's insight and data,
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  but there's also power to streamline the process and data. The reality is,
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  a lot of the loans for consumers have already been done multiple times.
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  We know the house, we know the consumer in many cases. Now,
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  there are new people coming into the market, but we know these people. Yes.
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  why are we asking Wendy for you to put your data in over and over again?
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  We know you. Right? We know you. We could trust Equifax to,
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  to bring data into the, the, the play to make sure that process moves quicker.
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  This is where I think there's,
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  there's opportunity to improve that we haven't really taken advantage of.
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  So data is a massive, massive component of how we automate the industry,
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  how we create the efficiency that everyone's looking for,
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  and how we move the industry forward.
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  We're not in the days where you and I may have came into the industry and there
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  was a thousand file cabinets that lined the halls of every lender.
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  Manually merging from data on a conference call there. Oh my God.
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  Conference table. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, with data in mind, you know,
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  there is a topic right now that's going around in regards to Trier. Yeah.
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  obviously at Equifax, data is, is what we do, do it every day,
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  and we see the benefits of more data benefiting consumers
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  being able to offer them better interest rates and so on, so forth with,
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  with all data. And also less risk to the,
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  to the lenders and the investors in the community by not having
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  undisclosed debt because you totally, which one do you pick? You know,
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  there's a lot of talk about single file right now. Yes. So,
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  from a technology, in your experience in the market,
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  what do you think about single file versus trimer? I,
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  I'm going to tell you right now, Equifax and our peers,
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  TransUnion and experience, yeah.
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  We all feel more data is better Yeah. For the consumer and for the lending.
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  Well, I, I would tend to trust Equifax, a partner of ours for me. Good answer.
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  Many, many years. My,
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  my perspective is that I've been sitting in for the last couple years
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  in the, the meetings with FHFA around
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  the switch away from the trier that's been taken off the table.
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  We're talking a lot about the Vantage 4.0. I think it's really,
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  really important that we lean into trusted partners like Equifax that have
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  consistent view over the data over time.
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  One of the things I most worry about with any change especially something so
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  important as credit,
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  is that we don't have the historical backbone to look at how to price loans.
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  So I think long term,
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  the more opportunities that we have to disposition a borrower, the better. Yeah.
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  But in the short term, and even in the midterm,
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  I really worry that a switch away from the tri merge will create
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  issues for the borrower and maybe even raise short term prices for the borrower.
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  I think we need, as an industry,
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  we need to ease into these things and understand what it means to price out
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  loans with Vantage 4.0.
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  With FCO 10 t with leveraging a single bureau I think we need
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  to work into those changes. I think over time,
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  maybe there is an opportunity there, but for me,
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  it's much more important that we lean into Equifax, to TransUnion,
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  to Experian,
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  and understand that this model that we've had is the foundation for how we
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  disposition a borrower. Can it change, can it evolve? Yes.
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  But doing it so quickly, I think puts consumers at risk. Yeah.
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  I tend to agree with you from that one.
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  So let's talk about Ice Mortgage Technologies for a minute.
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  I remember it long ago.
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  What's next for your encompass and your entire tech stack?
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  There's a lot going on.
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  I think one of the advantages we have being part of Intercontinental Exchange,
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  is that a lot of belt tightening had to occur for a lot of
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  partners and lenders over the last three years.
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  Because we're part of a larger entity.
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  We've used the last three years to invest heavily,
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  heavily invest in technology and our technology. Now,
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  we brought together a number of different components as we formed ICE Mortgage
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  Technology with mers and simplify Ellie Mae,
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  which is the branch of the tree that I came from. And then most recently,
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  black Knight.
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  So we spent the last three years figuring out how to bring those technologies
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  together to benefit our lenders and ultimately consumers.
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  So I'm really excited about where we're going with the technology stack.
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  Our core platforms are merging together in a way that we've never thought
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  possible in this industry.
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  With both origination and servicing the core platforms for origination servicing
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  coming together kind of realizing we talked about earlier.
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  That end-to-end experience is really top of mind.
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  Everything we do at ICE right now,
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  we want to make sure that we realize the dream that we had when we bought all
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  these different companies. It's fine to buy them,
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  but realizing that vision of putting them together in a way that benefits the
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  process,
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  realizes ROI makes it easier for a lender to process a loan,
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  to service a loan.
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  There's so many things that I didn't realize and how difficult it was until I
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  started to get into the, the weeds after we bought Black Knight.
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  It was really hard to onboard alone,
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  really hard to onboard for whatever LOS It was really hard to onboard alone.
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  We've taken that friction outta the process.
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  So some of it's basic blocking and tackling. It's not revolutionary.
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  It's evolutionary.
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  We're evolving the way that loans are originated and serviced,
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  which I think is going to yield a lot of positive results for the lender to
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  lower costs and for the consumer to know what their data is when their data is
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  dispositioned and be advocates for themselves. That.
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  That sounds fabulous. .
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  That's.
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  The dream. You have to give me a demo later. That's the dream.
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  So recently Equifax had a Market Pulse sim webinar. Yeah.
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  And we got out of it some operational challenges in the industry and
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  people really focusing on ai with all that you just said and the acquisitions
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  and bringing it all together. And I'm well aware of Partner Connect. Yeah.
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  . I hope so.
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  What are you thinking about AI and how to help lenders be
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  operationally efficient just to the next level than what you've already shared?
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  I mean, AI is the topic that everyone talks about and least last year.
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  I think we're, as an industry,
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  we're a little opaque on what AI means.
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  I think everyone's kind of chomping the bit to feel like, well,
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  how can I take advantage of this? What do I do? ICE has done a lot around ai.
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  We continue to have to build around ai.
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  We have a circle of excellence that's looking at how we leverage AI within the
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  current technology and future technology we're building. I,
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  one example is we've had mers for years.
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  We've had AllRegs for years. We're looking at ways to tap into the data of mers,
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  understand how to leverage that. That's maybe a little future state.
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  But we looked at AllRegs and said, well, God,
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  there's thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of compliance regulations
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  that govern how a loan is originated. Yeah.
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  And the AllRegs tool has been something where almost every lender,
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  every partner in the industry is leveraged to some degree, but it's a, okay,
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  I'm doing a VA loan in the state of Illinois.
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  What do I need to do to make sure that I comply with this VA loan?
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  And so I'm going through AllRegs to figure that out. We underst ask Reggie,
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  which is a an AI component Yeah. To make that process easier for everyone.
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  So we've taken existing technology, existing data,
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  and just streamlined the flow. There are other things that we're doing.
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  We just introduced a call agent for servicing so that a
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  borrower
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  whose loan is being serviced by a lender can call up and they can work through a
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  very seamless process to find out what their loan balance is if they had a,
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  a late. But it does it in such a way where at any point,
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  if it hits a roadblock where it can't provide the best,
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  highest quality answer to the consumer,
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  it flips it over to a person that can walk that consumer through.
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  So what that does is it gets the consumer to da to data easier.
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  It provides a more seamless process,
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  and it leverages humans where they need to be leveraged.
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  Where we are a little bit cautious, and we're,
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  we're making sure that we are approaching it the right way,
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  is not having AI or AI components disposition alone
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  without a person understanding what they're dispositioning.
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  So I think there's ways to automate,
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  we've done this for a number of years in regards to our data and document
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  automation solution where we've taken the stare and compare out of the process.
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  But we've always made sure that there's a human on the other end to review the
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  information, take away all the burden of all the work, right.
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  But make sure there's a human on the other end of the equation to make sure that
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  we're not dispositioning a loan, which again,
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  is the biggest transaction this consumer's ever going to make in their life.
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  We don't do anything where a human's not involved,
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  that has expertise and understanding of the repercussions of what
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  it means to qualify a loan, to fund a loan,
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  to move a loan forward in the process.
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  That sounds amazing. I just, as you were saying that, I mean,
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  I've been a consumer calling into automated systems. Yeah.
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  And you get into this loop, like you ask a question, it answers it,
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  then you ask another questions Yeah. And it answers it,
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  but then it doesn't seem like you ever get to that human being. Yeah.
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  So you've actually leveraged AI to take that leap to make sure it
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  recognizes when to bring the human in.
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  Well, you brought up data earlier. Yes.
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  The power of data isn't just in the data that we have for
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  loans that have been originated. We have a lot of data around that,
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  but we also have call center data.
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  So thousands and thousands of calls that have been recorded over years to help
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  consumers find out.
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  And so we actually leveraged all of that data on the questions that Wendy was
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  asking the first time she called up a week after she got her loan funded,
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  and it was in servicing. And we leveraged that to figure out what are the,
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  what's the path that we need to take to provide a level of service that doesn't
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  disenfranchise you from a, a actual human to answer your questions.
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  But in many cases, you just need to find out what your current loan balance is.
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  Why do you have to wait online or on,
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  on the phone for an hour to an have a question answered that could be answered
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  in literally minutes?
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  Let's talk about credit scores for a minute. Yeah.
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  So there's a lot of discussion recently about credit scores.
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  Obviously we've had the big announcement 2022. Yeah. The whole industry,
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  including ourselves, started to get ready for adoption of new credit scores,
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  which I think everybody would be a proponent for. Yeah. You know,
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  moving forward and getting to more data, totally scoring more data,
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  and so on and so forth.
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  Yeah. As we talked about,
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  there's an advantage to evolve what we do to evolve the industry. Yeah.
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  and I think some of the new credit models,
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  some of the new things that are coming out are really interesting. Yeah.
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  So there is advantages there.
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  Yeah. The trend of data being incorporated into scores, that's huge. Yeah.
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  so can you tell me a little bit about what ICE Mortgage Technology is doing in
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  regards to where you currently are? Yeah.
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  On the score journey to support the industry?
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  Well, I, you're not going to like this answer, but we're, we're going to,
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  we're going to lock lock hips with you guys. We,
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  we've are in constant conversation with FHFA.
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  We meet with Fannie and Freddy often every week to,
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  to talk about issues like this. But we're really relying on Equifax.
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  We are obviously trusted partners,
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  but really as a guidepost we don't want to
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  accelerate or be an accelerant to a process change without knowing the
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  ramifications.
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  And so it's really important for us to lean into our trusted partners that have
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  so much experience dealing with credit and understanding your perspective
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  on what those changes mean for the industry. Where we should put our weight,
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  obviously ice and ice mortgage technology,
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  one of the things we're known for is making sure that we're completely
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  compliant. Yes. With our software, we put a lot of weight behind that arrow.
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  But it comes through our partnerships.
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  It comes through understanding what those changes mean and working closely with
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  our partners like Equifax. I.
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  Love that. I absolutely do.
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  Well, it's a really.
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  We don't have all the answers today. That's fine. No.
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  We don't have all the answers.
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  . Yeah, that's totally fine.
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  So there's something that you may not even be aware of.
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  So we're hearing in the mortgage industry that some people would like more data
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  in regards to getting comfortable. Yeah.
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  Equifax actually has developed some crisis period data.
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  So for those of us that have been around, my God for a while, oh God. Yeah.
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  We go back to May, 2007.
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  No way. During the meltdown.
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  During the meltdown free meltdown. During the meltdown. After the meltdown.
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  So I'm.
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  Having flashbacks to some bad times. . Yeah.
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  You know, I didn't think about even mentioning it, to be honest with you. Yeah.
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  But so much of the synergy in regards to data and how important it is to
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  improve, you know,
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  the technology stacks and the processes and AI and everything.
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  I just thought I would share with you that Oh.
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  That's.
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  Great that we've done something. So.
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  I think what we talked about earlier, there's so much power in data.
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  I think one of the things that scares me is,
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  is change without understanding consequences. Right?
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  The fact that Equifax can bring that to the table and understand here's
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  what these new credit models would look like based off of past,
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  I guess what we're missing,
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  we're missing that perspective on what it means to the industry
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  to originate a loan, leveraging a new credit model.
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  And you don't know until, you know, but apparently with Equifax, we do. We know.
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  We know , .
• 19:00
  Well, Jonas
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  I think you've gotten me excited about it's what does the future hold for
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  our industry? Yeah.
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  I know we have a lot going on and the headwinds and everything that we're
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  dealing with, but I still,
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  I'm still optimistic that we have a lot of passionate partners
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  like yourself that are going to help push the,
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  push us forward. And I really appreciate that.
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  I want to thank Jonas for joining me today at the Equifax booth at MBA Annual
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  25. It's clear,
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  while the mortgage industry is facing all of these real challenges we have great
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  partnerships that are ready to move it forward.
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  And I really appreciate your time, and thanks for joining us.
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  Thanks, Wendy. We have great partners in the industry.
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  We have a great group of lenders here too. Yeah. They, this industry is great.
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  And it's you mentioned the cyclical nature of the industry.
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  We're always ready to adapt. We're always ready to change,
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  but we do it together.
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  So I appreciate joining you today or joining with you today. It's, it's amazing.
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  It's amazing. Good conversation. Good conversation. Thanks, Wendy.
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  The information and opinions provided in this podcast are intended as general
• 20:09
  guidance only, and are subject to change without notice.
• 20:12
  The views presented during the podcast are those of the presenter as of the
• 20:16
  date. This is recorded and do not necessarily reflect official positions of
• 20:20
  Equifax.
• 20:23
  Investor analysts should direct inquiries using the contact desk box on the
• 20:27
  investor relations section@equifax.com.