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Special Reports
Origination Technology
Carteret Says It's Ahead Of the Technology Curve
By Anthony Garritano
While the mortgage industry is typically slow to adopt new technology, pioneers
are now experiencing the value of their choices because it can be a differentiator that also cuts cost and time
out of the process.
One such organization is Carteret Mortgage Corp. here. "Given that we're
so spread out, we had to invest in technology for the simplest things," explained Eric Weinstein, president
and owner. "For example, we created a message board so loan officers can interact with each other in their
spare time. I remember gathering around the water cooler talking about the best lenders, etc., but we can't do
that anymore in a more mobile world.
"I've built the company to be five years in advance of the industry. I want
the industry to come to an e-world. Right now we allow the customer to fill out the application online and it goes
right into Encompass and underwriting to get an answer back in seconds. All our disclosures self-populate. Given
that disclosures can't be e-mailed, we put them on a server and give the borrower a password to click sign them.
"We also scrub for quality control, high cost, multiple occupancy, etc. These
things are now done electronically at Carteret. The industry needs to understand that this just can't be done by
hand anymore," he noted.
In terms of hot technology trends, Mr. Weinstein is most concerned about automated compliance. "Regulators
are getting more strict. In our system you can't leave a field on a given loan file blank and move forward,"
he said. "The biggest trend in the mortgage space now is the move toward nontraditional mortgages. Realizing
this, we created a disclosure to explain how negative amortization works, for example. That disclosure is something
that is not required by any regulator, but I anticipate that it will be required in the future," predicted
Mr. Weinstein. "Others will be scrambling, but we'll be there already."
In describing the company's overall e-roadmap, Mr. Weinstein emphasizes the significance
of imaging. "From the minute the customer signs the document, it is scanned in. We see the scanned file as
the document of record. We store most of our files electronically. When the auditor comes in we just give them
a disc.
"Certainly, there are a lot of challenges to going paperless. We created
a solution that put the bar codes on the form that took us a year to develop. Most companies have a cover sheet,
but we put the barcode directly on the file. We just want to make it easier for the loan officer and the customer,"
he said.
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