Settleware’s e-Signing Increases Borrower Satisfaction and Streamlines Loan Processing
In these challenging economic times, while the number of mortgages being processed may have declined, the number of loan modifications has jumped by thousands. Anxious borrowers find themselves in difficult situations, and lenders are being inundated by their requests for refinancing and loan modifications.
Lenders’ phone systems and employees are being overwhelmed which means borrowers are being frustrated. Many lenders are looking at increasing personnel in the PBX or call center department, as well as “staffing-up” their loan departments. When employees are overwhelmed, more errors occur.
The loan modification process can take days or weeks to complete, with much follow-up required. Documents need to be filled out and signed in a specified order, employment and income must be verified, and financial health must be determined through bank statements, deposit verification and investment accounts—all highly private and confidential information.
Most companies currently use a combination of overnight couriers and faxes to speed document workflow. But couriers are costly, and terribly inefficient. We have all experienced the times when the courier package goes temporarily missing, or completely lost. Sometimes the borrower forgets to put all the pages back in the envelope, or doesn’t sign in all the required places, necessitating additional courier charges and further delays.
It is common to need documents faxed three or four times to get all the required signatures. By the end of the process you’ve got illegible, unreadable documents. Faxes often skip pages or cut off signatures. They may sit for hours on a company’s common fax machine awaiting delivery, with documents easily read by anyone. Some clients will fax back using a Kinko’s public fax machine, which is like publicly posting confidential documents on a local billboard.
Ultimately, you’ve got an increase in labor and processing costs plus lost revenue due to the additional time it takes to process an application. All the while, borrowers’ anxiety and dissatisfaction grows….
Settleware’s e-Signing Solution
With Settleware’s e-Signing Real-Time Signing, lenders are now able to use the power of the web to obtain legally binding e-signatures while offering a completely secure, private and confidential process to the borrower. Any document, including loan documents, can now be signed securely and legally in minutes instead of days or weeks. With your closing time cut, confidentiality ensured and Settleware’s e-Signing ease of use implemented, the bottom line is that lost loans are reduced, borrowers are satisfied and revenue is increased.
Signatures can be obtained from anyone with an email address, from any computer or PDA in the world. Whether your document is being sent to one signer or a series of clients who sign in sequential order, the secure Settleware’s e-Signing process is the same:
- Loan officer logs into their secure signing room.
- Uploads documents or uses a pre-loaded template.
- Inputs email address of recipients in sequential order. Also adds any message they like.
- Adds tags to show where signatures, initials or information is required, and then sends.
- Borrower receives an email telling them they have papers to sign and to click on the link to do so.
- They are taken to a secure signing room where they review and sign the documents. They cannot send it back unless they have input information into all areas requested.
- Loan officer and borrower both receive an email containing a PDF copy of the signed documents which are stored in the secure signing area.
The loan officer or administrator is able to access the signing room at any time, where they can see the status of each signature request. If there is no quick response to a signing request, an automatic reminder can be sent to the borrower. When the document does get opened, an alert is sent to the originator notifying them that the agreement is being viewed. Any delay in signing can be a trigger to the loan officer to follow up with the borrower and answer any questions. In as few steps as that, the loan modification process is complete.
With Settleware’s e-Signing you will reduce:
- High costs due to expensive software & offsite storage
- Wasted time tracking down borrowers for missing signatures
- Buyer’s remorse or last minute re-negotiations
- Postage, Courier, FedEx fees
- Direct labor costs through increased efficiency
- Overall labor costs as employees are able to work from home or while travelling
- Document and processing errors
- Paper & form printing costs
- Toner & maintenance costs for fax machines and copiers.
While increasing:
- Your bottom line through compressed closing times
- Control over all documents and filing
- Borrower satisfaction which can bring in referrals
- Loan volume through efficiency
- Security since only intended recipients see documents
- Employee productivity & job satisfaction
At Settleware’s e-Signing we recognize that every organization has a unique set of workflow challenges; and while this may be true, the secure solution is the same—Settleware’s e-Signing.