How much money do you have? Is there anything else of significant value that we should know about? And how are you going to prove it to us? While mortgage banking professionals are typically not so curt and direct in their inquiries when sorting out whether a client is worthy of consideration for a loan, they still do need to obtain this information quickly and reliably.
As you see a steady stream of new individuals arriving to do business with your financial institution, you know that one of the key pieces of information when considering mortgage lending is the amount and disposition of assets they control.
Determining the veracity of assets is such an important part of the relationship between banker and borrower, it deserves our best attention, using the latest in software and technology tools to obtain the needed information. Essentially we want to make sure that an applicant is making an honest representation of the amount of assets on the application form.
Since modern financial technology tools allow for more efficient processes in applying for loans and digital information is easily accessed and reviewed, it makes sense that these tools should work along with time-tested methods to verify the assets in question. Read on to learn more about these three bank technology companies and the resulting benefits to the digital mortgage process.
Finicity
Finicity was founded with the idea that data is at the center of good decision making processes and to that end, the company developed a data access and insights platform to improve people’s financial experiences. Because of their well developed technology and the efficiencies it brings, the BeeSmartee mortgage platform is integrated with Finicity. Solutions it provides in the category of credit decisioning include asset verification as well as verification of income and employment, along with details from Finicity reports and consumer reporting agency information. From transactions and account history to financial institution statements, it’s all available quickly on demand.
The platform helps mortgage bankers with lending decisions based on a range of data that streams directly from financial institutions. Finicity authenticates the details of accounts and their ownership to facilitate the beginning of ACH money transfers. Consumers give permission for their data to be used, allowing for the transactions data and bank statement details to be readily available to institutions considering going through with a digital mortgage.
A Verification of Asset Report from Finicity includes information such as the account owner’s name and address, what type of account is being examined and current balance plus 2-month and 6-month average balances. In addition to the 180 days of validated transactions, you can work with a customizable data range to suit the particular needs of your financial institution. Finicity explains that “Combining the highest value data with real-time asset verifications, this pre-qualification tool gives you the most accurate snapshot of a borrower’s assets in seconds.” A loan origination process that might have once taken several days if not weeks is not a task that you can handle in mere minutes.
Finicity declares it is an authorized report supplier for Fannie Mae Day 1 Certainty as well as being a designated third-party service provider for AIM in FreddieMac arrangements. Finicity Connect is billed as an out-of-the box solution that lets you get started immediately, while Connect Lite is designed for clients that need a customized experience including their branding and content.
FormFree
FormFree has developed AccountChek for mortgage technology professionals to conduct digital verification of employment, income and assets, with the notion that collecting this information from borrowers will cut down the time for loan origination by as many as 20 days. For mortgage bankers that are weary of the often lengthy process of obtaining the required financial details from these borrowers, FormFree describes itself as using more than 1,000 algorithms (proprietary to the platform) and “augmented intelligence” in its asset verification efforts.
To date, more than a million orders have been placed by lenders using the AccountChek platform. FormFree says it’s a “faster online asset verification solution means faster results. With AccountChek, you can accurately and confidently close more loans in less time.”
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Statistics released by FormFree show that its financial technology helps bankers save as much as 90 minutes of processing time per file, and up to 30 minutes of underwriting time. The asset verification itself is a report available within mere seconds. The rapid delivery of information does not come at the expense of security. Instead of processing the loan documents through fax, email or surface mail which are not always the most secure mechanism, the company says it generates read-only products protected by the latest security protocols to ensure the privacy of the customers seeking loans. To that end, FormFree submits to regular audits and certification from lenders and Government-sponsored Enterprises, with FCRA and FFIEC compliance.
FormFree’s latest offering is AccountChek Plus, which offers three reports instead of one. You receive an analysis of assets including the overall cash flow, with data available now from more than 17,000 financial entities. It also corroborates direct deposit details with records from third parties, helping to identify borrowers’ employers, which is a major tool in combating fraud. AccountCheck Plus also provides immediate digital analysis of the borrower’s net income, with details about direct deposit (for consistency and frequency of these deposits) to help you get a better idea of the borrower’s capacity to make regular loan payments.
Plaid
Another company doing asset verification and that has integrations with the BeSmartee bank technology platform is Plaid, which has a front-end module that you can put into your own software setup. From the beginning of the process, you start verifying customer information, with an aim to curb fraud. Plaid helps to prevent fraudulent sign-ups at your organization by confirming the customer’s identity with what is on file at their financial institution, including phone, address and email details.
Integration comes with Plaid Link, which “is the quick and secure way to integrate with the Plaid API. Link is a drop-in module that handles credential validation, multi-factor authentication, and error handling for each institution that we support – all while keeping credentials from ever hitting your server.”
It also quickly verifies if borrowers have sufficient funds to make payments. To integrate with Plaid, you place some lines of code to drop in their front-end module for direct use in your bank’s own digital service or your own app. Plaid prompts the borrowers to connect their bank account, and this launches the Plaid software module. The average time to open a module, find their bank and input their credentials to allow access is 11.5 seconds. The user-permissioned data flows from their institution into your financial technology system.
Busy mortgage professionals will appreciate that you can get a quick snapshot of a user’s finances, with a consolidated summary showing a history of transactions and account balances. You also obtain clean transaction data of merchant names, locations and categories with the data standardized for all reporting institutions, making it much easier to sort out and compare on your end. From the perspective of would-be borrowers, they benefit from being able to review all of the financial data before they elect to share it with lenders, developers and others.
Interested in Discovering More About Asset Verification and the BeSmartee Platform?
New accounts developed with mortgage point-of-sale technology will take longer to process and go over when you lack streamlined tools to speed up the information gathering efforts. This is clearly the case when you and fellow mortgage bankers are focused on asset verification, which can be a time consuming and laborious process. You must get it right, since so much is at stake financially both for you and the borrower.
The serious business of asset verification is something that mortgage bankers will welcome help with, such as in the form of financial technology supported by major players, integrating with the capabilities of companies such as Fincity, FormFree and Plaid.
If you need more information about these organizations or are ready to consult with us about the BeSmartee mortgage platform, please get in touch with us at your earliest convenience. Call us at (888) 276-1579 or email our mortgage technology expert at sales@besmartee.com today.
