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Special Reports
Document Services: Riding
the Wave of Paperwork
Orion Combines Technology and Touch
By Amilda Dymi
SOUTHLAKE, TX -- Orion Financial Group Inc. here specializes in assignments, lien
releases and document retrievals for mortgage servicers and mortgage lenders who service their own portfolios.
And to be successful in this marketplace, its executives say, one needs leading-edge technology as much as old-fashioned
human contact with data providers and processors.
"Companies should be in the leading edge of technology, which allows them
to be flexible for their client needs and allows clients to grow their business without impacting the back end,"
said Orion president, Mike Wileman, "meaning that you are able to grow right along with them."
He believes mutual growth is possible if technology is combined with "a thorough
knowledge of the industry" that includes extensive communication with the county clerks to understand "what
they go through in the data-recording end." He recalled how a surprised county recorder in Oregon told him:
"Nobody ever stops by to simply talk to us."
"But we think it's important to do that," he said.
Because he thinks it is not a matter of just sending documents to the country,
having the data recorded and getting the document back. Often documents are not properly prepared, he said. "It
helps us too if we make sure we provide the information to the county in the best possible way so it allows them
to be more efficient.
"So it is technology as much as it is having the knowledge of both sides
of the process, the mortgage industry and the recording industry."
Orion recently released an upgraded version of DocPro, the software it initially
introduced in May as an expansion to its document recording capacity. Depending on the volume of loan servicing,
the executive said, the newly enhanced software will save Orion clients an estimated $5,000 to $10,000 a month
in various administrative expenses, while "dramatically reducing [document] turnaround time" rest assured
that their customers will receive the recorded lien release and in due time. These documents include a cover letter
from the loan servicing company, appropriate signatures and other instructions and information.
DocPro is designed to manage high volumes of assignment and lien-release recording.
It also helps minimize rejections by using various levels of control on client information and the destination
of client-specific documents. It's a valuable feature, according to Mr. Wileman, given that document-recording
rejections cost the mortgage industry an estimated $500 million a year.
Orion's document management technology has "the ability to create documents
at a rate 50% to 75% higher than the industry average," the executive said, noting that it is part of the
company strategy to position itself "for continued growth by leveraging our technology, innovation and knowledge
of the industry. When we talk about having flexibility and allowing your customers to grow, preparing the document
and taking it to the county to record is the easy part, although it's important to have the right cover letter,
proper fees and so on."
To be efficient, Orion said it has developed an exclusive in-house mail system
designed "to streamline and expedite the back-end processing," increase overall processing efficiency
and ensure that client documents are sent for recording in a timely manner.
Moreover, the mailing system replaces the work of about 20 people, had it all
been operated manually.
"The in-house automated mail system allows us to get documents executed and
out of the door in anywhere from two hours to a day or so," the executive said. "It is important to not
only handle documents with integrity, but also handle huge amounts of volume."
High efficiency in processing such large amounts of volume is important to Orion
because its average client-base consists of some of the nation's largest national mortgage companies, servicers
and banks.
"That's where we think we add value, because we have in our database every
county in every recording jurisdiction in the country," the executive said. "Smaller-size companies that
operate locally usually tend to handle pretty well those few counties they work with, so our value comes through
the national companies that literally may have mortgage loans in all three hundred-plus counties in the country."
And again, cutting-edge technology helps.
"Our technology allows us to be more efficient in document completion, check
writing and mail handling than the competition," Mr. Wileman noted. "Because of this efficiency, we are
able to follow up on each document to ensure it is recorded ... eliminating the hidden fees that some competitors
charge."
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