The mortgage business is all about paper. Boilerplate forms and informational content have to be read, interpreted, filled out, signed, copied, and physically moved around to financial institutions, brokers and borrowers. Traditional paper-based mortgage applications can take hours, days even, of staff time to process. Much of that time is wasted waiting for documents passing from one stage to the next. Things are changing very slowly, with only 7% of banks being able to handle loan products digitally from end-to-end. Most lending organizations are still struggling to improve the practices necessary to manage these complex and lengthy mortgage transactions.

On paper or online mortgage applications often require borrowers to supply duplicate information. Paper-based forms or non-integrated forms systems used at different steps of the process rarely flow data from one step to the next, requiring borrowers to furnish the information again. The connectivity gap also makes it difficult for financial institutions to assess the progress of transactions; the lack of speed and transparency frustrates customers.

In an era where consumers can get immediate status alerts on their ride share car or track purchased merchandise from their phones, borrowers naturally expect the same level of transparency and efficiency from the process involving a home purchase – probably the largest financial transaction of their lives. They are often disappointed.

Introducing a Fully Digital Mortgage Application Process

Today, lenders focus on improving the customer experience, sales effectiveness, and technology-fueled efficiency to gain an advantage in the mortgage loan marketplace. Digital mortgage application processing is becoming a must-have capability. Financial institutions unwilling to modernize their systems will find it difficult to attract borrowers that have the option to take their business to lenders offering more satisfying customer experiences.

Online mortgage applications are much easier for lenders to complete and manage. Using interactive web forms like Experlogix Document Automation Smart Forms, lenders can pre-populate much of the application with information available from their databases, reducing customer data entry activity; the borrowers simply verify the information is correct. In places where borrowers must add details, the Smart Form can guide them through the process with clickable definitions and warnings to ensure they provide all the required information the first time. Through configurable business rules, the form skips irrelevant sections and uses data already entered to control the context in which subsequent information is requested, making it easier and faster to navigate to the next step. A built-in calculator can recommend the best loan payment term for each borrower based on their needs and financial status. Borrowers can even create several scenarios they can discuss with their financial advisors.

Smart Forms from Experlogix Document Automation enables easier, quicker, more accurate data capture and encourages borrowers to complete the process. Completed applications means fewer customers will be lost to the competition.

Integrations that Speed up the Process and Improve Customer Experience

Traditional paper-based mortgage applications are often slow and unresponsive, which can cause problems for some borrowers such as losing the ability to purchase a particular home. Mortgage statistics reveal that 29% of borrowers that have choose to apply for a loan online prioritize speed, so digitizing the process from end-to-end to make it quick and painless is advantageous.

A mortgage application process can be further streamlined by leveraging Smart Forms’ pre-built integration to Experlogix Document Automation Smart Flows. Using this intuitive platform, business users can configure automated flows that ensure data-driven documents are swiftly generated, routed to appropriate stakeholders and stored. Integrations to electronic signature providers accelerate delivery of mortgage documents to borrowers and lending organization’s representatives who can sign from any computer or mobile device without delay, resulting in faster mortgage approvals and process completion.

Financial institutions switching to a digital mortgage application process powered by Experlogix Document Automation Smart Forms lower costs associated with handling paper documents, speed up completion of transactions and improve customer experience, ultimately driving business growth and profitability.