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The Significance of Looking at Newer Technologies By Anthony Garritano While the mortgage industry in general is very skittish when adopting newer technologies, that doesn't mean that the benefits aren't there. Automated underwriting, for example, was considered cutting edge at one point and now it's mainstream. 1st Metropolitan Mortgage, Charlotte, N.C., is a big proponent of at least evaluating newer technologies for possible usage. "You have those that want to do things the way things have always been done and resist technology," pointed out Daniel Jacobs, chief executive at 1st Met. "The challenge there is to present technology benefits to convince them that it will in fact benefit them. The other group is looking for and expects the latest and greatest. We try to attract highly productive originators that don't always fall in the tech-savvy category. We don't want to scare off originators that haven't used the technology and we want to convince the other group that we have the latest and greatest," he said. 1st Met takes a calculated approach in looking at and training on newer technologies. "We have to demonstrate how the life of the LO will be easier, how the quality of their work will be better, and how they will be competitive," explained Mr. Jacobs. "It's also very important that the technology be user friendly. So, we need technology that's very robust but requires very little training." In making technology decisions, 1st Met does extended due diligence and looks for clear business benefits to adopting smart technology. "Originators should be looking for technology that will enable them to be more efficient and savvy in the market," noted Mr. Jacobs. "That means better marketing tools to tap new borrowers and getting repeat business from old customers. Technology should be able to effectively market your company and serve as an integrated contact management program or an automated marketing tool. "Secondly, users should be looking for technology that allows them to conduct their daily tasks more accurately and efficiently," he continued. "For example, in the past fax has been the dominant tool, but if the institution wants to interact with their customers more efficiently and work that loan they have to be more automated. As a result, they need to look at LOS technology that will allow them to process loans wherever they are regardless of it they're in the office or on vacation." In fact, it's 1st Met's smart technology decisions that recently allowed the organization to survive a fire in one of their branches without ever interrupting business. In March 2006, the Little Falls, N.J. branch suffered total fire devastation. As soon as management at 1st Met found out, they acted quickly to offer much-needed assistance. This was because the company uses a hosted LOS that empowers users to access their loan data from any Internet connection, at any time. As such, the staff from the Little Falls branch was able to resume operations with virtually no down time by accessing their information from a remote location. Although original documents had been destroyed in the fire, the branch utilized the information stored through the application to quickly access crucial pieces of the loan file.

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